prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 92 review: the principal power and professionalism in fe copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 92-95 john harrison university centre at blackburn college john.harrison@blackburn.ac.uk daley, m., orr, k. and petrie, j. (2017). the principal: power and professionalism in fe. london: ucl institute of education press. isbn: 9781858568447 since the incorporation of further education in 1992, there have been numerous, farreaching critiques regarding both further education power structures and how senior leaders can exist fruitfully, both economically and morally, in ever-shifting sands. a relatively recent example can be found in further education and the twelve dancing princesses, daley, orr and petrie’s (2015) prequel to the principal: power and professionalism in fe. the prequel presents a collection of case studies and professional development proposals for teachers, managers and senior leaders that celebrated critical pedagogies, creativity, and independence as subversive strategies in the context of precarity. funding for further education in england was cut by more than a third between 2010 and 2018 (belfield, sibieta, & farquharson, 2018) and yet, while the minority government halted further cuts in 2017, the final wave of area based reviews (aimed at cutting the overall number of fe colleges and leaving those which remained more resilient), the introduction of the teaching and further education act (setting out key governmental priorities such as tprism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 93 levels), and the creation of the institute for apprenticeships and technical education (to provide oversight of college-based technical education as well as of apprenticeships) are examples of why this publication is valuable. in support, consider the persistent, panoptical pressure for continuous improvement and the context of ongoing uncertainty (offord, 2018) and internal debate (robertson, 2019) about how to achieve such improvement. this publication is well timed in offering a conciliatory and contemporary examination of the effectiveness of leadership, agency, and professionalism in further education today. machiavelli’s the prince is the metaphorical hook upon which expansionism, leadership and austerity are examined. machiavelli wrote his ‘little book’ in 1513 following political exile and he intended it as a guide to remaining in, or seizing control of, power. the preface contains an introductory letter from machiavelli to lorenzo de' medici explaining his qualification in proposing how to rule effectively. the contributors to this publication made up of current or former further education teachers, trade unionists, policy advisors, researchers and students utilise machiavelli’s position ‘at the foot of the mountain’ (machiavelli & parks, 2009, p. 3) to provide a rigorous interrogation of the current state of strategic and leadership practices in further education, with much focus on the manner by which senior leaders exercise influence, power and control over their ‘fiefdoms’. taken as a whole, the contributors offer their own treatise on how to regain a level of control amidst the ceaseless reorganisation of further education. part i utilises the prince as the basis to raise critical questions about power and the role of the principal in further education, offering leadership advice for current or aspiring principals, and drawing from machiavelli to critique policy and practice. in chapter 1, smith provides a contemporary account of the state of further education, offering a potentially tragic outcome, whilst carol azumah’s ‘letter from exile’ (daley, orr, & petrie, 2017, p. 3) in chapter 3 is an example of the integration and relevance of the prince within the wider aims of the book. page’s defence of the principal in chapter 4 provides a degree of shelter for those charged with the survival of a college, proposing that autocracy and managerialism are, perhaps, examples of necessary ‘malcontents’ in a time of scant resources and fierce competition. part ii explores the power dynamics in post-compulsory education, with the shared histories of australia, the united kingdom and the republic of ireland providing a foundation prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 94 for global perspectives on further education. in chapter 6, jones provides an account of further education in wales drawing from his experiences of trade unionism and evidencing the loss of trust in governance structures. moodie’s case study of australian technical and further education in chapter 9 is a discourse on privatisation and ‘for-profit’ control. part iii of the publication invites colleagues to consider how they experience further education and how, in turn, their professionalism is supported or hindered by current practices in the sector. in chapter 10, husband questions the place of innovation within colleges, whilst kholsa applies his experience of teaching to highlight the importance of teachers feeling valued in chapter 13. part iv provides an opportunity for contributors to explore transformative and experimental pedagogies and strategies, those that can be located deep within already wellestablished practices. in chapter 16, hammond reflects on his experience of navigating, creatively, claustrophobic procedural systems, employing the tactics of the ‘dérive’ and détournement. shukie, in chapter 17, argues for a new order of learning, using distributed teaching and learning strategies and community open online course (coocs) as emancipatory and subversive educational frameworks. overall, the publication constructs a form of educational activism: a positive, critical and far-reaching protest and call to action to managers, leaders and teachers to critique and manipulate, positively, further education from the inside. the commonality amongst the contributors is the recognition of the organisational, economic and cultural challenges, yet they propose eloquently, with precision and, like machiavelli himself, with no small measure of humour, an exploration of spaces where teachers and managers can execute control, influence and creativity as a response. i have worked for the same further education college for almost 20 years, starting in 2000 at a time of increased, then sustained, government focus on the value of further education, manifest most notably in forensic scrutiny of student retention and achievement rates as indicators of value for money and, whilst less explicit, societal impact. more recently, the necessary pursuit of continuous improvement (for example, in attrition levels and achievement rates) is cemented as a fundamental and defining measure of success that leads colleges along the path of (at least) financial survival. in this vein, and with protest, the book prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 95 offers a score of ethical, professional and cultural challenges to those invested in further education and will be of interest, and indeed use, to those who seek to contribute to alternative, creative, dynamic, and ethical futures. references belfield, c., sibieta, l., & farquharson, c. (2018, september 17). institute for fiscal studies ifs. retrieved 29 june 2019, from severe squeeze on further education and sixth-form funding in england website: https://www.ifs.org.uk/ daley, m., orr, k. and petrie, j. (eds.) (2015). further education and the twelve dancing princesses. london: trentham books. daley, m., orr, k., & petrie, j. (eds.) (2017). the principal: power and professionalism in fe. trentham books. machiavelli, n., & parks, t. (2009). the prince. penguin uk. offord, p. (2018, march 6). hull college group to shed over 200 staff. retrieved 1 july 2019, from fe week website: https://feweek.co.uk/2018/03/06/hull-college-to-shed-over-200-staff/ robertson, d. (2019, february 27). shrewsbury college lecturers start six days of strikes | shropshire star. retrieved 30 june 2019, from shropshire star website: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/education/2019/02/27/shrewsbury-college-lecturers-startsix-days-of-strikes/ prism journal prism volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 95 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 prism editorial: transitions and challenges craig hammond school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk) 1. transitions this is the first prism volume and issue to be published under the new journal management team, and the new ojs journal management system. as the new team of journal managing editors (myself, dave allan, and peter ford), our intention was to not only maintain but also wherever possible improve the generic education-based remit and experimental nature of the journal. with this mind, we think that the changes implemented so far have generated a number of positive developments. firstly, the new structure of the prism ojs platform offers a number of enhanced publication features: the publication interface of the journal now organises and publishes articles under the following categories: themed research papers themed think pieces general research papers general think pieces book reviews and, of course, the new prism blog the above categories and types of paper means that each volume and issue can have a specific theme – a theme and a call-for-papers (cfp) negotiated, developed and implemented by a team of guest editors; (the creativity theme published as part of this issue above is the first example of this). the next theme, attached to volume 3 issue 2, will be guest edited by francis farrell, vini lander and shereen shaw, on the theme of ‘the mission of integration’, repression, subjugation and discipline in civic nationalist education policy and practice. after this (volume 4 issue 1) will focus on the theme of working class academics. this themed issue and cfp emerged from the first international working class academics conference, which ran on the 14th and 15th of july 2020. this will be guest edited by peter shukie, kay sidebottom, and mollie baker. (working class academics themed issue cfp is still live and can be accessed here). whilst developing this rolling notion of themed and guest edited issues for each volume (focusing on a dedicated and specific area), we also wanted to ensure that we were able to protect the open and generic nature of prism. hence the general research paper and general think piece sections – which authors can routinely submit articles and research papers to – means that the eclectic education-related remit of the journal (on wider practice, theory and philosophy) is maintained. the addition of the early view section to the prism publishing platform means that all accepted papers can be made available to the academic community as soon as is practicably possible. by comparison, other education-based journals tend to operate to a tight and highly specified research and publication remit. however, we didn’t want to do this to/with prism; we wanted to become more proactive in targeting, engaging with and inviting an eclecticity of colleagues and wider networks to consider prism as a publishing platform. currently, there do not seem to be many robust journals that either will – or can – afford guest editorial teams a very real, flexible, creative and innovative space to not only democratically engage with, but actually shape and take innovative risks with. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/ mailto:farrellf@edgehill.ac.uk mailto:vini.lander@leedsbeckett.ac.uk mailto:shereen.shaw@edgehill.ac.uk https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-mission-of-integration-repression-subjugation-and-discipline-in-civic-nationalist-education-policy-and-practice/ https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-mission-of-integration-repression-subjugation-and-discipline-in-civic-nationalist-education-policy-and-practice/ https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-mission-of-integration-repression-subjugation-and-discipline-in-civic-nationalist-education-policy-and-practice/ https://workingclass-academics.co.uk/post-conference/ mailto:peter.shukie@blackburn.ac.uk mailto:k.sidebottom@leedsbeckett.ac.uk mailto:mlb60@cam.ac.uk https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/announcement/view/17 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-5364 prism hammond (2020) prism 96 3(1) as it is, prism, with its new and flexible structure can venture into that terrain; together i hope that we can manoeuvre in to diverse and interesting directions. amidst the ubiquitous and escalating pressures placed on academics through targets, performative requirements and managerialist-based expectations (emanating from all of our places of work), prism might well be unique in this regard. as a nomadic publishing entity, we welcome prismatic bedouins, (see peter ford’s excellent prism blog entry on the new bedouins: discontinuity and disruption in education). we believe there is a space and an important need for untrammeled, risky, challenging and unpredictable offerings in relation to education-based research and writing. unfortunately, these important principles appear to be becoming relics almost, that hark back to a period when knowledge and education was considered (at least a potential source of) potent, utopian and transformative practice; a key vehicle for constructive personal and social transformation. we would therefore like contributors and readers to target and associate prism with these key principles. for us, it is definitely a positive that prism is so fluid and malleable. prismatic bedouinism contains the potential to stand academic journalistic writing back on its ‘feet’. in a pedagogic sense, the metamorphic skein of prism has a flexibility that can yield and shape around the creative and innovative interests of any and all collaborators and guest editorial teams. for us, it is very clear, we either constrain contributors through the banisters of editorial shackles; or, we try to take a risk on developing something different. by endeavouring to pique the hungers, and creative interests of colleagues who also – hopefully – aspire for something more and something better, we can achieve a publishing platform that facilitates the dissemination of something more than a vehicle for churning out perfunctory academic sameness. to those of you hoping to engage with and produce something different, something impassioned, provocative, critical, and with future-focused tactics and ideas, we hope to hear from you. 2. challenges by i would like to pay tribute to the team of guest editors (anna, emma, neil and chrissi) who developed and successfully took forward this themed issue on creativity. not only did the team have to navigate prisms new systems and processes as part of the transition to the open journal system (ojs), but they had to do this amidst the many challenges and obstacles created by covid-19. the interesting breadth and quality of the papers produced is impressive. in addition to the articles published under the themed issue of creativity, prism also published two articles under the general research papers category. strudwick & johnson’s article learning from collaborative ‘conversations’ on the students as producer pedagogic model: students’ views, and enriquez’s article paper-work: what module guides have to say about assessment practices. the papers are excellent examples of diverse and innovative academic writing – they embody everything that prism aspires to support and produce. strudwick & johnson’s piece exemplifies a productive pedagogic and research collaboration between a higher education (he) and college based higher education (cbhe) institution. as prism was conceived within and grew out of the cbhe environment, we are proud to publish this piece, and welcome more submissions (and possible guest editorial collaborations) with colleagues in the cbhe sector. enriquez’s article is also worthy of note and celebration. as a draft manuscript, this piece had been submitted previously to a number of “mainstream” education journals purporting to publish radical and critical research on assessment and pedagogy. however, the piece had been ‘rejected’ due to not fitting with the principles or ethos of those journals. after prism published this article, the author was contacted by an influential and high profile professor, who complimented and supported them in the production of an important piece of critical scholarship. craig hammond – prism deputy editor (editorial lead on the creativity themed issue). https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/326 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/326 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/326 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/369 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/369 prism hammond (2020) prism 97 3(1) 3. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 4. acknowledgements all of the work that takes place behind the scenes in the production of papers prior to publication (such as copyediting and formatting) is incredibly time consuming, and is often conducted by people that rarely get outward recognition. i would like to thank lauren weston for her unwavering commitment, support and work behind the scenes. i don’t think that this themed issue could have been published without the copyediting and wider support work that she has provided. i would also like to thank cath dishman the open access and digital scholarship librarian at ljmu, for her time, expertise and invaluable support with organising and setting up the ojs journal platform, and supporting the prism editors. 5. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 6. to cite this article: hammond, c. a. (2020). prism editorial: transitions and challenges. prism, 3(1), 95-98 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012012 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism hammond (2020) prism 98 3(1) 7. references enriquez, j. (2020). paper-work: what module guides have to say about assessment practices. prism, 3(1), 99-112 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 ford, p. (2020, april 29). on the new bedouins: discontinuity and disruption in education. retrieved november 18, 2020, from prism education journal blog: https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/202 0/04/29/on-the-new-bedouins-discontinuity-anddisruption-in-education/ strudwick, j; & johnson, p. (2020). learning from collaborative ‘conversations’ on the students as producer pedagogic model: students’ views. prism, 3(1), 113-125 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/on-the-new-bedouins-discontinuity-and-disruption-in-education/ https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/on-the-new-bedouins-discontinuity-and-disruption-in-education/ https://prismeducationjournal.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/on-the-new-bedouins-discontinuity-and-disruption-in-education/ https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 149 review: automating inequality: how high-tech tools profile, police and punish the poor copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 149-153 peter shukie university centre at blackburn college peter.shukie@blackburn.ac.uk eubanks, v. (2017). automating inequality: how high-tech tools profile, police and punish the poor. new york: st martin’s press. isbn: 978-1-1250-07431-7 the publication of virginia eubanks’ latest work coincided with the uproar over social media and data collection, who owned it and what it was being used for. a sense of powerlessness spread across global communities as people felt they were being manipulated, their data traded and their exposure to news being managed by nefarious groups of corporate greed or invasive international governments. in automating inequality, eubanks presents research into the everyday experiences of automation increasingly embedded into the infrastructure of welfare in the united states. rather than mysterious international conspiracies played out in the indecipherable complexity of massive data ecologies, eubanks identifies real case studies in how technology is exercised in everyday life. i was reminded of her earlier work in digital dead ends (2011) and the importance of recognising, and resisting, ‘magical thinking' (eubanks, 2011, p. xv), a concept in which merely thinking something leads to its manifestation. such a delusional concern with the power of technology to solve societal ills was prevalent in eubanks’ research a decade ago, and came with a recognition that rather than ‘lift all boats’ (p. 5), a high-tech life was likely to perpetuate social inequality, not solve it. while the response then was a call toward a critical popular prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 150 technology based on active and participatory resistance, this research indicates a pervasive and destructive over-reliance on technology as a means of disassociating and alienating the poor. eubanks reflects on the decade between the research and asks, ‘how has the digital revolution become a nightmare for so many?’ (p. 10). a strong argument is presented for the shift from poor houses on the street to digital poor houses being created through algorithms and technology-mediated processes of vital resources. the high-tech tools in the titles subtext suggest a futuristic techno dystopia. while the dystopic is certainly evident throughout eubanks’ accounts, this is technology rooted in the unremarkable, in the daily existence of poor and working-class individuals and communities faced with automated processes where once people existed. at the heart of book are three research case studies, welfare reform in indiana, an automated approach to homelessness on skid row in los angeles and a screening tool for child welfare in allegheny county. each offers a rich account of lives affected by orwellian bureaucratic farce, such as welfare recipients that have their card payments scrutinised so social workers can see where they shopped and what they bought, skid row homeless exprisoners scored too low for housing because they had recently had accommodation as inmates. the detail of the systems employed in each of the three scenarios is accompanied by a history of the ways that welfare systems, and america generally, has viewed the poor over the preceding centuries. this concern with a thorough outline of policy and its enactment in these states might seem only partially relevant beyond national borders. certainly, the discussion around policy and activism to change policy, public-private partnerships and the structuring of welfare systems is often state and nation specific. i had to look up ‘hoosiers’ (people from indiana) and yet while a few terms and policies are specific to their context, the overall concern of the book is familiar and clearly linked with experiences we see in the uk, europe and increasingly globally. eubanks refers to a discussion with a previous research participant describing surveillance of her spending on a welfare card, she tells eubanks, ‘you should pay attention to what happens to us. you’re next’ (p. 9). the ‘us’ in question relates to the working class, the socio-economic status of those most at risk of brutal, cold automation. in this context the ‘you’ refers to a safer, while increasingly at risk middle-class, although history suggests that mitigation often comes to the aid of the prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 151 wealthy as often as it fails to materialise for those lower down the economic spectrum. these ‘us’ and ‘them’ patterns are being enacted through ever broader categorisations, eubank claims, from the individual under scrutiny to a classification of categories based on colour, location, income and family context. algorithms seem to offer a neat processing plant that manages whole societies based on generalised and politically constructed concepts. the recent uk film i, daniel blake (laverty, loach, johns & squires, 2017) offers a powerful narrative based around similar experiences. an increasingly automated and digitally defended welfare system is becoming part of our cultural narrative and shifts from ‘the computer says no’ comedy sketches to alienating and brutal automation. the way in which the homeless and those in receipt of medicaid and welfare are depicted in the book provides intense stories of struggles against bureaucracies that revise what we mean by digital literacy, including what education and learning should include in the twenty first century. in the introduction, eubanks describes her own experiences of being ‘red flagged’ following an attack on her partner at a grocery store. a refusal to pay medical insurance seemed based on several high-risk factors where only eubanks’ expertise allowed her to identify, challenge and ultimately reverse the decision. the book hums with anger, and with many examples of human activism, struggles for survival and resistance to machine-led decisions that are always significant, and in some cases deadly. you cannot read this book without feeling that something has changed and that established means of fighting for social justice must likewise change in response. i was struck by some of the arguments eubanks makes that resonate with george orwell’s frustrations about an earlier machine age, in the road to wigan pier (orwell, 1937). eubanks updates orwell’s call for change through revealing a number of deep-seated social issues at the heart of the current concern with algorithms and data. like orwell, eubanks identifies a universal political malaise; the right concerned with exposing malingers, fraudsters, and creating an idle, undeserving poor while the left ‘hand wring about the poor’s inability to exert agency in their own lives’ (p. 176-77). for orwell, it was the english class system that allowed for multiple lives to co-exist along lines of crass inequality. in automating inequality, eubanks reports on techno-social systems that promise shiny new futures of efficiency and equanimity in decision-making, while masking the extent to which the algorithms harden social stratification ‘embedded in old systems of power and privilege’ (p. 178). prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 152 yet the book goes beyond any hand wringing of its own and manages to avoid being lost in localised interest alone, despite the detailed contexts provided around indiana and allegheny county. partly, this is down to eubanks ability to present compelling human narratives at the thick end of algorithm based social policies. more than this, however, the significance of automating inequality comes through a recognition of the ways that social structures continue to unfairly target the poor and working class while simultaneously allowing an as-yet unaffected middle class to look away and do nothing. how american society sees itself is woven throughout, highlighted by a nineteenth century view of the poor as something to be obliterated (p.20). however, it appears this obliteration is being replicated in contemporary political rhetoric and the embedding of inequality within techno-social systems. the normalisation of poverty and its alignment with struggles with the system permeate the case studies. eubanks highlights how poverty lives cheek by jowl with wealth and requires a cultural denial (p. 175) to allow the poor to become hidden in plain sight. one of the participants in the research describes trying to get to a senator at a public meeting, and the shocked surprise of the senator when faced with such immediacy. as the participant reflected, the senator needed layers of people between him and the public. what eubanks provides is a detailed, often alarming and frequently anger-inducing portrayal of how technology offers such layers that cut off the poorest in society and create increasing layers of alienation, scrutiny and sanction. these do not feel uniquely american concerns and we do not need to be familiar with allegheny county to see what is at stake here. some of the book is deeply depressing, and we are warned that the digital poorhouse is hard to understand, massively scalable, persistent, and eternal. it also includes us all. chillingly, eubanks tells us that the digital poorhouse also kills people (p. 214). however, eubanks also has a powerful voice of social activism and is proponent of action and participation, not representation. in this work, as in digital dead ends, the solution lies with the people themselves. challenges begin with raising empathy and understanding and a coalition of working class and poor communities. from here, coalition would also need to go beyond middle-class representative activism to real participatory activism that allows the marginalised to speak for themselves. eubanks provides two useful questions that might begin our own response to the algorithms shaping our communities: ‘does the tool increase the self-determination and agency of the poor? and ‘would the tool be targeted at non-poor prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 153 people?’ (p. 212). in answering these questions, the creators of algorithms, the designers and implementers of systems would need to move beyond concepts of efficiency or resources alone. eubanks’ subsequent ‘oath of non-harm for an age of big-data’ (p. 212) poses additional questions and acts as an updated social and economic version of asimov’s law of robotics. automating inequality exposes how our data is already being used to define us within our societies and makes a compelling argument that while the technology is new, the ancient struggle remains the same. references eubanks, v. (2011). digital dead end: fighting for social justice in the information age. massachusetts: mit press. laverty, p., loach, ken, johns, dave, squires, hayley. (2017). i, daniel blake. entertainment one uk, distributor. orwell, g. (1937). the road to wigan pier. london: penguin. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 144 containment and division: evaluating class-based metaphors in higher education1 copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 144-148 terry mcdonough2 university centre at blackburn college terry.mcdonough@blackburn.ac.uk language matters. it’s as much about the words we use, as it is about what those words reveal about how we think. this is because a language is a culturally transmitted system (tomasello, 2014). no speaker can ever possess, or even know, the entire code that makes up the system. instead, speakers have access to the parts that they use the most. even then, there can be a lot of variation between speakers. there is a good deal of variation between languages, too. different languages conceptualise the world in different ways. for an english speaker, time moves horizontally from left to right; for a chinese speaker, time moves vertically from the top down (boroditsky, 2000). wherever we look, time is always associated with space. it seems we can’t even think about time without also thinking about space. thinking of one thing in terms of another is called metaphor. if i say, “i’m looking forward to the end of the year”, i am talking about a point in time as though it is a point in space. forward and end are spatial reference points. i can do this because i experience time as movement through space. my body is subject to the conditions and circumstances prescribed by the environment in which it exists. this view is known as embodied cognition (chemero, 2009). i am a brain in a body in an environment. (and so are you.) 1 an earlier version of this article appeared as part of the aoc scholarship project’s think piece series. 2 terry mcdonough is prism’s editor-in-chief (2017-2020). to avoid a conflict of interest, this article was handled by the deputy editor and a member of the editorial board. https://www.aoc.co.uk/april-2018-mind-your-language-why-he-in-fe-divisive-phrase-promotes-inequality-terry-mcdonough prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 145 there’s an entire branch of linguistics devoted to investigating the relationship between embodied cognition and language. it’s known as cognitive linguistics (evans & green, 2009; ungerer & schmid, 1996). one of the oldest and most accessible frameworks in cognitive linguistics is called conceptual metaphor theory (lakoff & johnson, 1980). the idea is that human language is structured by a set of basic embodied concepts (johnson, 1990; lakoff & johnson, 1999). let me illustrate. a common phrase used in the discourse of education is ‘he-in-fe’. it means higher education delivered at a further education college. he-in-fe is a container metaphor. something is inside of something else. container metaphors are common. we fall in and out of love, for example. the idea is that we feel like we are these thinking things (minds) that are inside these fleshy vessels (bodies), and we know that these fleshy vessels can go inside other non-fleshy vessels, like a house or a car (environment). all very practical. what about being inside a country, then? it’s a bit more abstract. we draw boundarylines on diagrams and give these bounded containers a name. this container is england. this container is france. we can’t even move from one bounded container to another without a lot of fuss. we even have big discussions about whether our bounded containers are in or out of other bounded containers. you caught the eu referendum, i imagine? quite a lot of talk about containers and which container belongs where. quite a lot of talk about other people, too, and which container they ought to reside in. i love this container. this is my container. you are not allowed in my container. these imaginary containers can cause a lot of trouble. we love fighting about them. we even have a word for container-based fighting. we call it war. it’s not too disagreeable, then, to suggest that the way we talk about things represents how we think about things, and that how we think about things affects how we behave, such as getting angry about who resides in which abstract container. we would find it outlandish if we heard politicos telling us they were going to make our container “great again” or ensure that those with different bodies (containers) are sent away to other containers (containers in containers, again). the next time you listen to the daily news you may feel a sense of absurdity creep over you if you switch any reference to a country with the word container. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 146 let’s have a think about that phrase he-in-fe again (or college-based he and other terms of distinction). we have established that he-in-fe is a container metaphor. however, it is inflected by two other abstract concepts: progress and value. this relates to the concepts of higher and further. broadly speaking, we tend to think of time as an arrow of progress (lakoff & johnson, 1980). for english speakers, time moves horizontally from birth to death (boroditsky, 2000). progress move diagonally from the bottom-up: that is, we move incrementally across the arrow of time where each success increases the trajectory of our progress. in contrast to the horizontal progression of time, value has a vertical hierarchy where high is good and low is bad (johnson, 1990). we claim to feel down, or have our mood lifted (up). we might hear idioms such as “going up in the world” or “falling from a great height”. these conceptual geometries of value are explicit in our language: we have numerical sequences like primary, secondary, or tertiary; assessment is graded via alpha-numeric scales; we also have vertical sequences like lower, upper, and higher. such geometries underpin our ways of thinking (see chilton, 2014). however, when we bring these two geometries together (the arrow of time/progress, and the scale of value), we find that they don’t fit too well. this is because they function on different spatial planes. progressing further takes us across a horizontal plane. moving higher takes us up a vertical plane. from this perspective, higher (education) exists on a different plane to further (education). with he-in-fe, progress and value intersect. this is where the container metaphor becomes important. the higher-in-further concept implies an extension of a horizontal plane that is contained. he-in-fe is a progression from the standard limit of fe (6th form, for example) but is not conceptualised as an increase in the value scale where higheris-better. in accordance with the value scale, he-in-fe is valued lower than he. why else would there be a distinct set of terms? to examine the effect, i must resort to anecdote. i have worked in he for the past 10 years, at both large universities and at he institutions that so happen to be located in the same physical space as an fe college. i have delivered the same lectures and seminars in both spaces. my students have studied the same topics, used the same materials, and participated prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 147 in the same discussions. the only difference i can recall relates to contracts and expectations, especially when it comes to research. one space sees it as an essential activity; the other sees it as a useful addition. one space aims to strike a balance between research and teaching; the other aims to maximise teaching at the cost of research. it is here that we find a gross inequality. the divisiveness of the language mirrors the divisiveness of the practice (see fairclough, 2010). it is probably no surprise either to find that he-in-fe often exists in geographically impoverished areas. social mobility, or market exploitation? i will let you decide. access to he in spaces accessible to all is a necessary social justice. if we are to devalue those spaces, or make distinctions between them based on access, privilege and location, we only undermine their emancipatory potential. this starts with how we discuss and frame these spaces. in practice, this is managed by the different levels of attention we give to those who seek out higher learning. if the nominal he-in-fe is framed as an underclass to he, where students are not expected to receive research-led provision, we only deny the most vulnerable, the most disaffected, and the most deprived, of the opportunities that they rightly deserve. we place them in a different container. you would think that the inverse would be true: that those who have suffered structural inequalities based on a lottery of birth would have access to cutting-edge provision. what’s the solution, then? can we petition oxbridge to establish outreach centres in the most deprived locales? probably not. in essence, though, it’s quite simple. humans learn. we love it. some of us like a broad sample. some of us like to model the exact velocity of a worm swirling through a hurricane. it’s all wonderful. let’s encompass it all. let’s work towards living in a world where, to quote the late mr. lennon, we really are all “clever and classless and free”. let’s work towards a world where our language doesn’t promote artificial division, where one sector isn’t raised above another by virtue of an abstract noun phrase. more importantly, let’s work towards a world where we don’t salt the earth: where we don’t find it acceptable to allow one group of students to benefit from cutting-edge research, while the other makes do with the scraps from that higher table. this is a structural inequality so refined that it is barely discussed. framing and legitimating the practice with abstract terms like hein-fe does not remedy the inequality. instead, the language bars us from addressing the underlying practice. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 148 addressing inequality begins when we learn to mind our language. it really matters. it matters for gender, it matters for race, it matters for all forms of discrimination. we need to recognise that it matters for class-based discrimination, too. even a simple phrase can encode and propagate bias and misperception. however, like the conceptual geometries i outline above, it is all a fiction of our own invention. we are all responsible for propagation. let’s be responsible for more positive change instead. let’s start by minding our language. only then can we tackle the practices that reproduce inequality and division. references boroditsky, l. (2000). metaphoric structuring: understanding time through spatial metaphors. cognition, 75(1), 1–28. chemero, a. (2009). radical embodied cognitive science. cambridge, ma: mit press. chilton, p. (2014). language, space and mind: the conceptual geometry of linguistic meaning. new york, ny: cambridge university press. evans, v., & green, m. (2009). cognitive linguistics: an introduction. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. fairclough, n. (2010). critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language (2nd ed.). london: routledge. johnson, m. (1990). the body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. chicago, il: university of chicago press. lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (1980). metaphors we live by. chicago, il: university of chicago press. lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (1999). philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. new york, ny: basic books. tomasello, m. (2014). a natural history of human thinking. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ungerer, f., & schmid, h.-j. (1996). an introduction to cognitive linguistics. london; new york, ny: longman. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 138 class, education and mindset copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 138-143 david allan edge hill university david.allan@edgehill.ac.uk in this think piece, i discuss the implications of class in relation to mindset and educational opportunities. i wish to illustrate how attitudes – particularly those influenced by social positionality – can be a significant contributor to education, employment, and social status. this interest stems from my previous research in educational disaffection and student marginalisation. notwithstanding previous political rhetoric that class difference was beginning to wane (e.g. john major’s claim in 1990 that britain was transitioning towards a ‘genuinely classless society,’ tony blair’s 1999 proclamation that ‘the class war is over’ and david cameron’s concept of a ‘big society’), it is clear that in british society today the class war is far from over. indeed, an ever-increasing gulf between the rich and the poor perpetuates the problem of social inequality (elliot major and machin, 2018; savage, 2015). whilst this is a long-held problem in britain, fresh impetus is clearly needed to challenge it, and diane reay’s (2006, p. 289) suggestion over a decade ago that ‘in a social context of growing inequalities there is a need to reinvigorate class analysis, not bury it’ is perhaps even more relevant today. the current social stratification in the uk, albeit arguably more complex than its historical counterpart, has, on the one hand, facilitated seemingly smoother transitions for social mobility through measures such as widening participation; yet, it is also fraught with new challenges, such as the ever-widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 139 1. class and education social disadvantage in schooling plays a major role in restricting individual agency, and education often becomes focused on the reproduction of capital (bourdieu, 1992), rather than acting as a mechanism for facilitating a space for its production (apple, 1982). the role of education in society is significant as school (and other educational institutions) can act as a microcosm. however, it can also contribute to how that society functions. schools, it is claimed, reproduce the legitimated cultural capital of those in the dominant groups (bourdieu, 1992); for example, the middle classes. in this way, such capital is readily accepted whilst for others, school is a challenging environment that resonates little with their social surroundings. thus, the cultural capital ‘inherited from the family milieu’ can dictate the level of success a child will see in school (reay et al. 2005, p.19) and the impact of this can be seen in post-compulsory education decisions, whereupon opportunities are, again, often constrained by the parameters of social status. it has long been argued that education, at least in our western society, prepares workingclass children for a working-class lifestyle, often involving heavy manual labour (e.g. willis, 1978). according to apple (1982, p. 42), schools are ‘agents in the creation and recreation of a dominant culture’ and this situation is perpetuated throughout the education system. for example, despite many attempts at widening participation, far too many individuals feel that university study is not for them. a class-based mindset can therefore route an individual along a particular avenue in life and can be as detrimental to the class gulf as opportunities that favour the middle classes. whilst cultural capital is at the heart of facilitating middle-class progression, we can also evidence differences in attitudes that are counter-productive for many people. of course, many working-class people do attend university – and more in today’s world than in previous decades – but in too many situations these are the learning mavericks who break the mould. indeed, many must amend their outlook in order to progress and even change their behaviours in order to gain acceptance. this ‘playing the game’ we often view as upward social mobility but of course those who choose not to play this game can be seriously disadvantaged. that is, not only do they not have the right start in life, but they are adamant that their pathway cannot veer that way. thus, the role of school as a site of reproduction is problematic in that it is perpetuating class divisions and failing to widen thinking in many who succumb to the class-based mindset. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 140 where school is a site of reproduction, an individual’s place in society is reaffirmed. career pathways that are regarded as more advantageous than the average job – the medical or law professions, for example – are heavily dominated by the middle classes as schooling for these areas often involves the acquisition, and quite often the recognition, of cultural capital (bourdieu, 1992). however, for schools this is problematized by the notion of a lack of production and the failing role of the school in facilitating this. moreover, as a result of poor agency and hidden inequalities, many young people inadvertently perpetuate the problem by failing to use their education as a means of production. of course, this is not their fault and it is extremely difficult to counter such lack of opportunities when what is often needed is the cultural capital in the first place in order to accurately identify a problem. many working-class young people do not ‘buy into’ education because it does not facilitate a route to a place in society that they can relate to and one’s mindset can contribute to this process: many careers are perceived to be beyond the realm of actuality. indeed, it is also often the case that some societal leverage can be acquired more effectively through actions that may counter schooling, such as wanting to leave school as early as possible in order to get a job. whilst these measures may appear anti-intellectual, they can be both reassuring and reaffirming if they appear to result in the securement of greater economic capital and/or an increase in social capital. indeed, in the case of individuals who become neet1, whilst there is a lack of economic capital, there is often a trade-off as social capital takes priority. furthermore, for some in this situation the lack of economic capital can be a coercive force towards crime in order to restore the balance. agency, then, is reclaimed in one form or another and often the rejection of school is, in itself, an act towards achieving this. schools have a role to play in reducing inequality, of course, but it is also important to show that we should not place all the weight on them; schools merely form ‘part of a larger framework of social relations that are structurally exploitative’ (apple, 1982, p. 10). what schools do well, however, is replicate that exploitative structure. 1 not in education, employment or training prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 141 2. class-based mindset in addition to education, there is a societal role involved in the reproduction of inequality (bourdieu, 1992; reay, 2017), where positionality is usually established early on in life and has limited flexibility in its parameters with regards to social mobility. it is here that we can see the influence of mindset on employment opportunities, educational success, and movement in social status. in many of my previous studies with marginalised young people there is often an identifiable mindset that perpetuates this position. schooling – and sometimes more specifically the academic route – is rejected because it fails to resonate with social experiences. as such, becoming a doctor or a solicitor is something that other people do – the posh kids, the rich kids, the clever kids. aspirations, then, are closely tied to mindset and social milieu. in a study published in 2014, one student explained that for her, learning needed to be related to her world: i like doing things where i can see what i’ve done at the end of it – like colouring hair. you know when you get it right…and it makes you feel good. for me, that’s learning because i can use it again (emma – cited in allan, 2014). similarly, in another study, a student comments on her employment opportunities because her experiences of working in an alternative learning setting resonate with her social world: being here has made me think about my future … in school, you’re just expected to do what they say; they don’t think about what we want (jade – cited in allan, 2015). the final example i will give here again typifies the responses wherein young people have been marginalised by an education system that fails to value their experiences: at school...i know it’s our education and all that, but you just learn about different subjects. it doesn’t really mean anything. but here...this is good ...this is what i need to learn to get a job (emily – cited in allan and duckworth, 2018). in the examples above, and in many more in each study, the young people’s attitudes to learning are influenced by their class-based experiences. of course, this does not apply to prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 142 everyone in this situation but there is a notable trend in that, like the boys as far back as willis’s (1978) study, education is class driven and even counter-scholarly activities can be prioritised if there is stronger social relevance (humphrey et al., 2004). whilst schooling is rejected, and perceived as representative of a social existence that is implausible (and often viewed as beyond the students’ capabilities), it is also the institution where change can happen; indeed, student empowerment can lead to more openness to using education as a means to grow intellectually and to create opportunities for social mobility. schools are not only institutions of reproduction, in that they can reaffirm status and reinforce social inequalities through the replication of the social division of labour, but also apparatuses for the production of knowledge. otherwise, as apple (1982, p. 27) notes, individuals leaving school ‘would, in fact, remain within the economic trajectories established by their parents.’ the challenge for education is to educate beyond the curriculum as many students will perpetuate their own status within both society and their school. this is sometimes a delicate task as individuals may feel that their agency is at stake but where marginalisation occurs as a result of social and educational exclusion, self-marginalisation will only exacerbate the problem. this is not, of course, to lay the blame on young people as agency is clearly wrapped up in structural parameters. however, as individuals’ experiences are interwoven in their initial societal positioning, it is arguably important to create life chances through education, metacognition and critical self-reflection in order to facilitate more informed choices for the future (allan, 2015; apple, 1982; reay, 2017). references allan, d. (2014) dealing with disaffection: the influence of work-based learning on 14–16-year-old students’ attitudes to school. empirical research in vocational education and training 6 (10), pp. 1–18. doi.org/10.1186/s40461-014-0010-4 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40461-014-0010-4 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 143 allan, d. (2015) mediated disaffection and reconfigured subjectivities: the impact of a vocational learning environment on the re-engagement of 14–16-year-olds. international journal on school disaffection 11 (2), 45–65. doi.org/10.18546/ijsd.11.2.03 allan d. and duckworth, v. (2018) voices of disaffection: disengaged and disruptive youths or agents of change and self-empowerment? british journal of special education. 45 (1), 43–65. doi.org/10.1111/14678578.12201 apple, m. w. (1982) education and power. london: routledge. bourdieu, p. & waquant, l. (1992) an invitation to reflexive sociology. oxford: polity press. elliot major, l. and machin, s. (2018) social mobility and its enemies. london: pelican. humphrey, n., charlton, j. p. and newton, i. (2004) the developmental roots of disaffection?’ educational psychology, 24 (5), 579–594. reay, d. (2006) the zombie stalking english schools: social class and educational inequality british journal of educational studies vol 54, no 3, 288–307. reay, d., david, m. e. and ball, s. (2005) degrees of choice: social class, race and gender in higher education. london: trentham books. reay, d. (2017) miseducation: inequality, education and the working classes. bristol: policy press. savage, m. (2015) social class in the 21st century. london: pelican. willis, p. (1978) leaning to labour. london: routledge. https://doi.org/10.18546/ijsd.11.2.03 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12201 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12201 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 1 editorial: declassing education copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 1-9 phil johnson university centre at blackburn college philip.johnson@blackburn.ac.uk william card university centre at blackburn college william.card@blackburn.ac.uk 1. education, pedagogy and class 1.1 emergent consciousness in learning delivery systems “class is a communist concept” (margaret thatcher, 1992) “…we’re all middle class now” (tony blair, 1992) "rich, thick kids do better than poor, clever children” (michael gove, 2010) in july 2017, the journal’s regular contributor david hayes (also mysteriously known on social media as dajvid haze) posted a proposal on facebook, setting off a chain of events leading to the issue of prism you are reading now (fig.1). the online reaction to his idea was immediate and heartfelt. our impression of that moment was that there was a hunger to talk about the lived experience of class in education and to relate this experience to our wider institutional, social and economic contexts. with this special issue, we hope to better prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 2 represent the issue of class in education as well as the experience of working-class students and academics. figure 1: facebook conversation on working class academics in the united kingdom in the 1990s and early 2000s there seemed to be a developing consensus view, a groupthink, employing phrases such as “the classless society” and “meritocracy” and, in reflection of fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ (1989), giving the impression that society was progressing naturally and inevitably towards a liberal democratic, globalised meritocratic end state. the collapse of the world economic system in 2008 and the punitive measures used to bail out the financial markets in the years that followed (which in the uk prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 3 were called “austerity”) are associated with rising inequality and savage cuts to the welfare state and public services. the post-crash period has also seen a resurgence of populist and extreme right-wing politics. at this moment the debate around social class and education seems more pertinent and necessary than ever. our initial and informal discussion of the theme revealed an abiding anxiety over class identity, a micro-fracturing and division that distracts from gross societal inequalities and decreasing social mobility. is this class selfconsciousness rather than class-consciousness? this journal is hosted at an institution in one of the most deprived areas of the united kingdom. staff here are regularly trained in equality and diversity for characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, but bias based on social class is not covered. as diane reay suggests, social class is insufficiently addressed in teacher training and education, leading to the issue’s marginalisation. …until we address social class as a central issue within education then social class will remain the troublesome un-dead of the english education system. i am not conjuring up here some gentle shadowy ghost haunting our classrooms but a potential monster that grows in proportion to its neglect (reay, 2006) diane reay was the first researcher to be mentioned in the comments on the facebook post above and we are absolutely delighted to publish her article in this issue. the question that then arises is whether the low status of class issues in education and society is a result of unconscious bias or, as henry giroux suggests in this issue, because there is an active, conscious depoliticisation through reinforcement of ignorance and illiteracy. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 4 more profoundly, illiteracy is also about refusing to act from a position of thoughtfulness, informed judgment, and critical agency. illiteracy has become a political weapon and form of political repression that works to render critical agency inoperable and restages power as a mode of domination … illiteracy provides the foundation for individuals to be governed rather than a foundation that enables them to govern. we note the increased prioritisation of skills over education and growing emphasis on the employability of school leavers and graduates. does this suggest that class consciousness, creativity and critical thinking may be seen as superfluous at best and, at worst, a threat to the established social and economic order? our call for papers used the phrase ‘emergent consciousness in learning delivery systems’ both as a reference to (re)emergent class consciousness in education and in relation to the recasting of pedagogy, teaching and learning in the more robotic, instrumental and behavioural vocabulary of learning delivery, programme management, assessment and quality assurance, with implications of a future of artificial intelligence and algorithmic education. prism’s remit is to welcome and support submissions from established and emergent authors and practitioners and the reaction from our contributors to the call has been truly impressive in its breadth and quality. 1.2 conclusion has the ‘resigned compliance’ and ‘submissive complicity’, referred to in our opening paper, got the better of us and extinguished our hopes and beliefs in a higher education system that levels the opportunities for all its students rather than divide them? prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 5 this special issue contains six articles, three think pieces and one book review over 50,000 words on a topic we have been blithely told no longer exists, or if it does, can just be surmounted through more aspiration and participation? the commitment and critical insights in this issue will hopefully inspire every reader to engage with this research and scholarship. 2. in this issue this special issue is opened by a life lived in class: the legacy of resistance and the enduring power of reproduction from diane reay. it has her own life and career as a case study, one originating in a working-class coalmining area, before twenty years as a primary school teacher in london and then as an academic and professor of education at cambridge university. the case study advances the influential work of pierre bourdieu on the relationship between a habitus and a field through its concept of a recalcitrant habitus. the article supports its position through many examples of personal experiences that illustrate both self-defeating and transformative consequences of resistance. it posits the effects of a field cannot be overcome ‘by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps’. thanks to the depth of its analysis, this ‘life lived in class’ provides enhanced insight and alarming examples of the impact of class and its relationship with other influences. it questions the ability of higher education to surmount these problems when: …the academy is a field defined by male as well as upper class power: a space where racism of intelligence is compounded by the misogyny of intelligence. henry giroux, in higher education and the politics of the radical imagination, then provides a piercing account of the contemporary threats and pressures facing higher education. it serves immediate notice to their urgency from increasing authoritarianism, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 6 deregulation and privatisation. it identifies a political project behind pedagogies of repression and education that merely ‘provides the foundation for individuals to be governed rather than a foundation that enables them to govern.’ the article encourages all educators to protect the cultures that make democracy possible and rebut the current attacks on the truth, honesty, and the ethical imagination. it argues this requires a new way for thinking about education, one that halts the creation of a predatory class of ‘unethical zombies… producing dead zones of the imagination that even orwell could not have envisioned’. it also includes clear guidance for practitioners seeking to do more in their higher education teaching than merely train students for the workforce: critical pedagogy is about more than a struggle over assigned meanings, official knowledge, and established modes of authority: it is also about encouraging students to take risks, act on their sense of social responsibility, and engage the world as an object of both critical analysis and hopeful transformation. the third article is beyond the curriculum and the classroom: a case study of a curriculum enhancement programme in an english secondary school where rachel jackson puts forward her research from teaching classics on an after-school curriculum enhancement programme. half of the participants had been identified as ‘disadvantaged’ on the ‘classics class’ programme that provided learning opportunities usually reserved for elite educational institutions. the paper includes five portraits of the participants that provide fascinating insights into how these young people perceive their futures. this is followed by ‘risky business?’ on perceptions of risk and vulnerability in further education from christina donovan. the intriguing title illuminates the paradoxical and conflicting response the term ‘risk’ produces; conflicts evident from her research within a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 7 further education college into the conflicting accounts of the term ‘risk’. the research investigates how the term is defined by different members of staff and captures what they consider the characteristics of an ‘at risk’ student to be. before assessing how negative perceptions influence attitudes towards such students who in the consequences of the neoliberal environment where they represent a ‘risk’ to the financial health of the organisation. the next article is from abdul aziz hafiz who in, class precarity and solidarity in education: social value co-creation and non-ownership social infrastructures considers the great british class survey 2013 and its class at the bottom of this ranking system, the 'precariat'. it extends earlier work by acknowledging the sociospatial complexities of class and argues for understanding difference in relation to global dependence and the reproductive mechanisms of precarity. the potential to provide security through higher education is then considered. alex dunedin then provides class, opportunity and the lesser minds problem: a ragged university response which considers his work in the free education project the ragged university. this initiative uses the uk’s traditions of free education to provide learning opportunities at community events in social spaces. the piece opens with discussion of the lesser minds problem and processes of dehumanisation and dementalisation. the social justice aspirations of pedagogy are contemplated as are the relationships we encounter when education is reduced to “free” market principles. the first of the three think pieces in this special issue, comes from richard wyatt with raymond williams the working class academic. this contemplates the key ideas from one of the founding fathers of cultural studies and argues for his contemporary relevance. the piece prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 8 considers williams’ pioneering insights from the 1960s that included additional ways for understanding lived experiences and his term ‘structure of feeling’ which can uncover alternative collective opinion; an important method as such thoughts may not always reflect dominant ideologies. david allan provides the second think piece, class, education, and mindset. allan considers the influence of attitudes in education, employment, and social status. it reflects on the role of education for maintaining rather than alleviating class divisions, through its ability to reproduce capital rather than its production. the piece offers a clear challenge for educators, one where we aim to educate beyond the curriculum to create more life chances and informed choices for our students. this is followed by a third think piece, containment and division: evaluating class-based metaphors in higher education by terry mcdonough. the use of conceptual metaphor theory is put forward to understand the divisive effects in educational discourse from terms such as ‘he-in-fe’ (higher education in further education). a thoughtful breakdown of this metaphor is provided in the piece which stands as a clear provocation and challenge to this artificial and damaging distinction in the different classes of he now available in the uk. this special issue then concludes with peter shukie’s book review of virginia eubanks (2017) automating inequality: how high-tech tools profile, police and punish the poor. this book has evolved from eubanks’ research and case studies into experiences of the use of technology in everyday life and its embeddedness into the infrastructure of welfare in the united states. the review elucidates some of the troubling findings in eubanks’ book and the pervasive and destructive over-reliance on technology as a means of disassociating and alienating the poor. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 9 we hope that you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it inspirational for your own work and/or thinking. prism welcomes your responses, critiques and counterpoints for future issues. references fukuyama, f. (1989). the end of history? the national interest, (16), 3-18. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184 reay, d. (2006). the zombie stalking english schools: social class and educational inequality. british journal of educational studies 54(3). http://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184 prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302207 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302207 80 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 my religion is important karamat iqbal forward partnership, birmingham, uk (karamat@forwardpartnership.org.uk) received: 16/01/2021 accepted for publication: 29/06/2021 published: 24/07/2021 1. introduction it is common to see reports of our society becoming less religious (sherwood, 2019). this is said to be a generational phenomenon, i.e. people are less religious than their parents, and, similarly, their own children are even less religious than they were. it is also explained that non-religious parents are successful at transmitting their lack of faith to their children. this is not just a british phenomenon. the pew research centre has pointed out that young adults around the world are less religious: ‘younger respondents are less likely to identify with any religion in 41 countries’ (kramer & fahmy, 2018). one finds similar reports about birmingham, which is my focus. we are told (miller & roger, 2019) that the fastest growing religious group in the city are the ‘nons’ i.e. people without a religious belief. the group were 342,000 in 2018, which is just under a third of the city’s population. but there is more to this picture than that being painted by the headlines. first, while their numbers maybe falling, christians are still a sizeable faith group which makes up 38% of the city. 2. muslim-majority city what is overlooked by the general reports is the presence of minority faiths, such as the 26,000 hindus, 22,000 sikhs and 3000 buddhists. the more significant minority faith are the muslims, who number at 301,000 in the city, making up 27% of the local population. over ten years ago the department of work and pensions pointed out that birmingham was set to become the first majority muslim city in europe (tackey et al. 2006). is that possible? the answer is in the affirmative if one looks at the younger population. in 2011, data from birmingham education showed that muslims were the largest pupil religious group (at 36%), more than the christian denominations combined (33%). six years ago, it was reported that of birmingham’s 278,623 children, 97,099 were registered as muslim and 93,828 as christian in the last census. the figure for those children without a religion was 54,343 (buckley, 2014). in my doctoral research (iqbal, 2019), i asked 219 students, at the end of their schooling, to respond to the statement: my religion is very important in my life. the responses were as follows: agree/strongly agree 1. pakistani 89% 2. bangladeshi 87% 3. indian 86% 4. white british 28% it was found that the numbers of pakistani children are growing while the numbers of white british children are decreasing. this will have further impact on the religious presence in the local population. earlier, iqbal (2013) had pointed out that, according to the census 2011, the two most religious city electoral wards were washwood heath and bordesley green – majority pakistani areas and the two least religious wards were moseley and selly oak mainly white british wards. he pointed out that https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:karamat@forwardpartnership.org.uk prism iqbal (2021) prism 81 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) muslims had begun to move out of the inner-city areas with the result that each of the 40 city wards had at least 2 per cent muslims in their population. the brum youth trends (2017) found that the young people overall identified the least with their religion, except in b10 and b11 (mainly muslim areas) where the situation was the exact opposite, that is, here their religion was the top most identity shaper. for white young people, their religion was the least important. when it comes to religion, london is also bucking the trend. bickley & mladin (2020) have spoken of ‘reverse secularisation’ taking place in the capital city, pointing out that ‘london is the most religious place in great britain, in the sense that a larger part of london’s population say they have a religion, compared to the rest of great britain’ (bickley & mladin, 2020, p.25). london only had 33% ‘not religious’ compared to the rest of great britain, excluding london, having 45%. the authors go on to point out that this is ‘likely that this is driven by immigration and diaspora communities’ (bickley & mladin, 2020, p.24). furthermore, it is pointed out that ‘there is a more substantial nonchristian religious presence in london’; one fifth of london’s population compared to 7% in great britain (excluding london). the largest such non-christian religion is muslim, comprising ten percent compared to less than two per cent in the rest of the country. the phenomenon of religion, especially amongst the growing ethnic minorities, is nothing new. the fourth national survey of ethnic minorities (modood et al. 1997) had reported the largest percentage of ‘nons’ were amongst the white population, at 31%; while amongst ethnic minorities very few declared as such – indian (5%), pakistani (2%) and bangladeshi (1%). a similar picture was presented, in response to ‘religion is very important to how i live my life’: white (13%), indian (47%), pakistani (73%) and bangladeshi (76%). later, findings from the 2001 home office citizenship survey (o’beirne, 2004) showed that ‘more respondents from minority faith communities and minority ethnic groups felt religion was important’ (p. viii) and ‘99 per cent of the respondents with no religious affiliation were white and one per cent came from minority ethnic groups’ (p8). looking ahead, modood (2012), an authority on religion within the multicultural context, has pointed out that religion is likely to be very much a part of our future, arguing that a super diverse racial, ethnic and religious mix in its principal cities will be the norm for social and cultural life in twenty-first century europe. 3. implications so, what are the implications of such a situation? our religious freedom is something we take for granted. this means both a freedom from religion and belief as well as freedom of religion. we have large numbers of citizens from both categories. the challenge facing us, therefore, is how the two can be enabled to co-exist. a starting point is for both to understand each other. butler-sloss (2015, p.9) referred to this as ‘religious literacy’ which, according to her report, was needed in every section of society and at all levels. ‘the potential for misunderstanding, stereotyping and oversimplification based on ignorance is huge’ (butlersloss, 2015, p.9). the report called on educational and professional bodies to draw up religion and belief literacy programmes and projects. such literacy was defined as ‘the skills and knowledge required to engage in an informed and confident way with faith communities’ (communities and local government, 2008, p.33). earlier, the greater london authority (2007, p. xv) had provided a comprehensive definition of religious literacy: skills in understanding and assessing religious statements and behaviour; discerning the difference between valuable and harmful aspects of religion and religions; appreciating religious architecture, art, literature and music without necessarily accepting all the beliefs that they express or assume; and making reasonable accommodation between people holding different religious and non-religious worldviews. griffith-dickson (2015, para. 6) had likened such literacy, to the religious equivalent of emotional intelligence; a matter of knowledge, but also an ability to be informed, aware, at home with diverse religions; the ability to conduct prism iqbal (2021) prism 82 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) oneself well when questions of faith and belief come to the fore. iqbal (2019), in his research in birmingham schools, had asked the pakistani students what their views were on this matter. an overwhelming number stated that for them it was important that their teachers understood the students' heritage, especially their religion. several teacher interviewees, too, saw such understanding to be central to the teaching and learning process and for raising standards. modood (2010) has pointed out moderate secularism and respect for religion are vital if we are to move from a multiculturalism of fear towards genuine pluralism, “respect for religion and moderate secularism are kindred spirits and are sources of hope for a multiculturalism that gives status to religious, as to other, communities.” 4. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 5. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 6. references bickley, p. & mladin, n. (2020). religious london faith in a global city. https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/re ligious-london-final-report-24.06.2020.pdf brum youth trends. https://www.beatfreeksyouthtrends.com/2017 buckley, j. (21.9.2014). birmingham faces changes with more muslim children than christian. https://www.business-live.co.uk/economicdevelopment/birmingham-faces-changesmore-muslim-7800883 butler-sloss, e. (2015). living with difference. https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpre ss.com/2015/12/living-with-differenceonline.pdf communities and local government face to face and side by side (2008). https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20 120920014517/http://www.communities.gov. uk/documents/communities/pdf/898668.pdf greater london authority (2007). the search for common ground muslims, non-muslims and the uk media. http://www.insted.co.uk/searchfor-common-ground.pdf griffith-dickson, g. (16.12.2015). making your own mind up on role of religion and belief in uk public life. the tablet. https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/893/maki ng-your-own-mind-up-on-role-of-religion-andbelief-in-uk-public-life iqbal, k. (2013). dear birmingham. xlibris. iqbal, k. (2019). british pakistani boys, education and the role of religion: in the land of the trojan horse. routledge. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/religious-london-final-report-24.06.2020.pdf https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/religious-london-final-report-24.06.2020.pdf https://www.beatfreeksyouthtrends.com/2017 https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/birmingham-faces-changes-more-muslim-7800883 https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/birmingham-faces-changes-more-muslim-7800883 https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/birmingham-faces-changes-more-muslim-7800883 https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-online.pdf https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-online.pdf https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-online.pdf https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120920014517/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/898668.pdf https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120920014517/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/898668.pdf https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120920014517/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/898668.pdf http://www.insted.co.uk/search-for-common-ground.pdf http://www.insted.co.uk/search-for-common-ground.pdf https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/893/making-your-own-mind-up-on-role-of-religion-and-belief-in-uk-public-life https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/893/making-your-own-mind-up-on-role-of-religion-and-belief-in-uk-public-life https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/893/making-your-own-mind-up-on-role-of-religion-and-belief-in-uk-public-life https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism iqbal (2021) prism 83 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) kramer, s. & fahmy, d. (2018). younger people are less religious than older ones in many countries, especially in the u.s. and europe. https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-lessreligious-than-older-ones-in-many-countriesespecially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/ miller, c. & roger, j. (2019, april 10). the fastest growing religion in birmingham revealed and it may surprise you. the birmingham mail. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midl ands-news/fastest-growing-religionbirmingham-revealed-16105391 modood, t., berthoud, r., lakey, j., nazroo, j., smith, p., virdee, s., beishon, s. (1997). ethnic minorities in britain. psi. london. modood, t. (2010, september 24). we need a multiculturalism of hope. the guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree /belief/2010/sep/24/multiculturism-hopesecularism-religion modood, t. (2012). post-immigration difference and integration: the case of muslims in western europe. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publicat ions/new-paradigms-post-immigrationdifference-integration-case-muslims-westerneurope/ o’beirne, m. (2004). religion in england and wales: findings from the 2001 home office citizenship survey. home office. london. sherwood, h. (11 july 2019). uk secularism on rise as more than half say they have no religion. the guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/ 11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than-halfsay-they-have-no-religion tackey, n., casebourne, j., aston, j., ritchie, h., sinclair, a., tyres, c., hurstfield, j., willison, r., page, r. (2006). barriers to employment for pakistanis and bangladeshis in britain. department for work and pensions. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20 130125093835/http://research.dwp.gov.uk/as d/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_360. asp https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/ https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/fastest-growing-religion-birmingham-revealed-16105391 https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/fastest-growing-religion-birmingham-revealed-16105391 https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/fastest-growing-religion-birmingham-revealed-16105391 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/24/multiculturism-hope-secularism-religion https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/24/multiculturism-hope-secularism-religion https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/24/multiculturism-hope-secularism-religion https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/new-paradigms-post-immigration-difference-integration-case-muslims-western-europe/ https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/new-paradigms-post-immigration-difference-integration-case-muslims-western-europe/ https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/new-paradigms-post-immigration-difference-integration-case-muslims-western-europe/ https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/new-paradigms-post-immigration-difference-integration-case-muslims-western-europe/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than-half-say-they-have-no-religion https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than-half-say-they-have-no-religion https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than-half-say-they-have-no-religion https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130125093835/http:/research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_360.asp https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130125093835/http:/research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_360.asp https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130125093835/http:/research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_360.asp https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130125093835/http:/research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_360.asp prism journal prism volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 1 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 editorial: our creative selves anna hunter,1 emma gillaspy,2 neil withnell,3 and chrissi nerantzi4 1 centre for excellence in teaching & learning, university of central lancashire, preston, uk (achunter1@uclan.ac.uk) 2 faculty of health & wellbeing, university of central lancashire, preston, uk (egillaspy@uclan.ac.uk) 3 school of health & society, university of salford, manchester, uk (n.withnell@salford.ac.uk) 4 faculty of arts & humanities, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, uk (c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk) received: 28/09/2020 published: 18/11/2020 1. context when the editorial team (anna, emma, chrissi and neil) started work on this themed issue of prism, more than 12 months ago, we could not have envisaged the world into which this collection of work would emerge. the effects of the covid19 pandemic have been – and continue to be – felt around the world, and have been transformative with regard to the way in which higher education is delivered. as the established, time-worn ‘norms’ of higher education have become untenable, there has been a call to educators in all countries to truly engage with their creative selves. whilst isolated, remote, worried and distracted, we all have to learn to thrive in the new possibilities of digital learning environments, in order to deliver the most meaningful educational experience possible to our students. as we set out our plans for this prism themed issue, we were certain of one thing: that it should focus on the notion of individual creativity, by inviting contributors and readers alike to explore what creativity means for them. now more than ever, we see the importance of harnessing our creative selves – in our work, in our personal creative spaces, and in our responses to the world around us. the authors that have contributed to this special edition each explore how creativity has facilitated engagement, connection, personal and professional development, and ultimately the way in which creativity has shaped their worlds. these contributions were produced and submitted in late 2019, and speak to a world before covid; yet despite the fact that all of the papers in this collection were written before the onset of the pandemic, they all thematically centre on a number of core principles that are perhaps even more relevant as we navigate the uncertain territory of 2020 and beyond. these themes are encapsulated within this word cloud; we invite you to reflect on these and from them create your own meanings, as are relevant to you and your practice: within this themed issue we present a treasure trove of creative practice, drawn from a range of practitioner stories and creative applications, across a range of https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:achunter1@uclan.ac.uk mailto:egillaspy@uclan.ac.uk mailto:n.withnell@salford.ac.uk mailto:c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4202-920x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-3331 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7145-1800 prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 2 3(1) disciplines and professional areas. all of these accounts showcase a creative idea, practice, intervention or experience, which has enabled the authors to develop their creative confidence through taking risks and being committed to their creative practice. learners reflected on the impact of creative teaching on their development in the co-produced article from nerantzi et al (2020). payton (2020) explores creativity through the lens of mindful play, this study illustrating that embodied activities can lead to depth of learning. often the authors encountered challenges from students, colleagues or institutional systems (payton, 2020), yet none of these challenges inhibited the creative spirit and expression of the authors, that has the potential to make a real difference to their students. paltoglou & hopper (2020) reflect on the role of expressive freedom and creativity in the teaching of psychology, and carlin (2020) explore “de-classrooming” the implementation of an ad-hoc intervention in the role of seminars on sociology, which empowered the sense of creativity and ownership. these themes are echoed further in gosling, burke & maclennan (2020), in which the authors reflectively and critically explore the use of poetry as a means of facilitating collaborative learning between undergraduate students and people with criminal convictions. many of the contributions are reflective narratives linked to practice, expressing personal learning and development within the wider creative endeavour: vasko (2020) describes the practice of self reflection through nature walking as “contemplative ecological enquiry”, revealing the creative self at play. drawing together the themes of personal and pedagogical creative development, nerantzi and moravej (2020) revel in the synergies that arise between the academic and academic developer, using a collaborative approach to module design and delivery that very much encapsulates the narratives of growth, change and reflection that lie at the heart of this special issue. 2. the editors by way of an introduction to our creative selves, the four guest editors wanted to explore what creativity means for each of us. we have chosen to do this by responding to objects that represent creativity for us, as a reflective prompt to explore our own relationships with our creative selves. a. anna hunter like many people in the spring of 2020, as the outer world closed down i found myself drawn to what i could bring from the natural world into my own space. echoing the symbiosis of inner and outer worlds that is explored in zuzana vasko’s ‘inner and outer worlds: creative practice as contemplative ecological inquiry’, my inner world of home and garden became my entire world for 10 weeks. during this time i found comfort in planting and nurturing – despite being an inexperienced and, often, haphazard plant keeper (let alone gardener). when prompted to consider objects that represent creativity for me, my thoughts are drawn to the plants that i have cared for during the covid19 crisis – in particular, a pumpkin plant that speaks volumes about what it means to be creative, and to lean into the impossible. the pumpkin: for about four years, i have had a longing to grow my own pumpkins for halloween. my family and i moved into our house around that time, and inherited a patch https://twitter.com/annachunter?lang=en prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 3 3(1) of garden that seemed destined to be a vegetable bed. that first summer, i succeeded in growing a small pumpkin plant that flowered, but produced nothing more. disheartened, it has taken until 2020 to try again. other members of my family were cynical, to say the least. i was told that i was wasting my time, there was no chance that my tiny seeds would produce pumpkins (and even if they did, the squirrels and slugs would eat them long before halloween). for once, i was undeterred – i now have two enormous pumpkin plants that are rapidly colonizing the bottom of my garden. will they produce the hallowed fruit? i have no way of knowing. but i know that they have already achieved much more than i had hoped for, and who knows what they will eventually become? many of us who embrace creativity in our teaching and learning practice will have heard the words ‘it can’t be done’; ‘you can’t do that’. sometimes creativity exists in the most unlikely of spaces, when all the odds seem to be stacked against it. often, the naysaying voices come from within, and they can be the loudest critics of all. creativity in a time of trauma and instability may seem superfluous, but nothing could be further from the truth. the papers included in this special edition are joined by shared narratives of connection, freedom, risk, renewal, resistance, playfulness and growth. much like my own plants, creativity thrives despite the circumstances, and offers us a way in which to truly engage and embrace our creative selves b. neil withnell the effects of the pandemic have certainly brought out creativity in a way that i certainly did not envisage. creativity means a lot of things to me, namely fun, experimentation and the taking of risks. colleagues tell me that i am creative but i often don’t think that is true, i just like to try out new things. faced with working from home i found myself missing the people contact and the buzz of the university campus. i cannot wait to get back. the special edition of the journal has been a great journey, both in terms of my own learning and of seeing how creative people are, you can see this from the variety of submissions. my own “creative self” over the past few months has been one of experimentation and risk taking, and yes a lot of fun. i have become more involved in gardening, and although certainly not “green-fingered” the opportunity to understand more about plants and the way they grow (types of soil etc.,) is fascinating. in an attempt to be creative i designed an indoor arrangement that i enjoy seeing develop, very much like my own creative development as every day i notice something new. growing: c. emma gillaspy this photo shows my collection of play-doh, a ‘tool’ i use a lot in my teaching and also representing multiple facets of who i am as a creative educator. i love the endless possibilities and potential that comes with using such malleable materials and i guess that’s how i view the world... the opportunity to reshape my views and experiences is ever-present and i believe in the transformational potential of people. there’s something nostalgic about the material too. whenever i use it, people begin to share stories of their childhood or playing with their children. this speaks to my own drive for creative congruence, reconnecting with my core values and beliefs and leveraging them to shape my teaching practice. i’m passionate about developing confident congruence in others through appreciative inquiry-based coaching, working with the whole person’s experiences to unlock their true potential. play-doh can be social and collaborative too, working together to create something new although that has certainly been more challenging to facilitate during the https://twitter.com/neilwithnell https://twitter.com/egillaspy?lang=en prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 4 3(1) global coronavirus pandemic! my most creative moments always happen when i’m working with others online or face-to-face. there’s nothing quite like the positive energy i feel when bouncing around new ideas, so i’m always seeking creative ‘tribes’ who foster that non-judgemental space. finally, play-doh needs action, it’s daring you to do/make something with it and i feel this need for action within me too. education needs to change, we need rebels who can stand up against the traditions, break down the barriers and foster different ways of thinking and doing. i find myself driven to question the system, i’m never satisfied with the status quo and i’m constantly looking for ways to move forward both as an individual and a sector. i dare you to take the actions you believe are needed in education too. possibilities and potential: d. chrissi nerantzi i think the object actually picked me. my creative self is a ball of wool, a colourful one. the wool takes me places, is a connector and i can make stuff using it. when you are with me, you will never know what happened next, not even i often know, or what i will make. it will be a surprise. i guess it is the child in me that never moved out. my appetite to wander and wonder has been growing year after year... the connecting aspect is important to me. connecting with ideas and people. to develop trust and caring relationships and experiment, to play. there is a lot of value keeping our curiosity and inner flame alive and being an explorer, an adventurer and even a rebel. what would the world be without them? i can see (at least some of) the opportunities. overcoming challenges is part of it. now during the covid-19 pandemic and always. being resourceful and inventive. with limited resources. no budget. breaking free from rules and conventions and making novel connections to create more exciting realities, to problem-find and problem-solve, to make our world a better place. to go a path nobody else has been before, to be that path. not everybody can see this. not everybody recognises the value of creative ideas. at least not immediately. but that is ok. they may not be ready for them yet. often it can take years… pushing the boundaries means living at the edge, being at times rejected, even ridiculed. the other rebels out there give me hope. my ball of wool brings us together and we stay together for a little while or longer, depending on the commitment we have to each other. this is how ideas grow and evolve, how they can be sustained. i am not alone. not alone: 3. looking ahead our individual stories, like the narratives of practice contained within this special edition, demonstrate clearly that creativity is essential to who we are, as individuals, as educators and as learners. telling the story of who we are allows us to understand ourselves and our practices better, so that we can continue to grow and innovate. stories are important, the stories contained here even more so, because they also provide evidence of the effectiveness of the creative approaches. but we aren’t ready to stop here: more evidence is needed to continue to demonstrate the incredible impact of creativity within higher education teaching and learning. this special edition has, to some extent, been a celebration of the creative self, often triumphant in the face of adversity. future research https://twitter.com/chrissinerantzi?lang=en prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 5 3(1) may focus on the frustrations encountered by the creative practitioner, on the creative projects that didn’t come to fruition, the interventions that didn’t work as planned. this collection has been delivered into the midst of a pandemic, but was conceived long before the real impact of covid 19 was seen a future collection will explore the creative ways in which educators have risen to meet the challenges of a permanent shift in the educational landscape. there are many different exciting and unknown directions that this research will take in the future; we hope you will come with us on the journey. we would like to thank all our contributors, their commitment to creative practice but also to sharing their work with a wider audience so generously and openly. the guest editorial team. prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 6 3(1) 4. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 5. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 6. to cite this article: hunter, a; gillaspy, e; withnell, n; & nerantzi, c. (2020). editorial: our creative selves. prism, 3(1), 1-7 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301209 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism hunter, gillaspy, withnell & nerantzi (2020) prism 7 3(1) 7. references carlin, a. (2020). de-classrooming: moving learning outside the classroom. prism, 3(1), 68-80 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 gosling, h; burke, l; & maclennan, s. (2020). developing a creative pedagogy to understand the university experience of non-traditional students. prism, 3(1), 53-67 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 nerantzi, c. & moravej, h. (2020). an (un)usual teaching team. prism, 3(1), 87-94 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 nerantzi, c; moravej, h; iosifidou, i; silva, n. (2020). creativity interwoven into the fabric of learning, an example from a postgraduate nutritional science module. prism, 3(1), 34-39 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 paltoglou, a. & hopper, j. (2020). creative psychologists: reflections on teaching and pedagogic practice inspired by an arts-based away day. prism, 3(1), 81-86 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 payton, j. (2020). using mindful play to unlock creativity: a creative companion. prism, 3(1), 8-33 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012010 vasko, z. (2020). inner and outer weather: creative practice as contemplative ecological inquiry. prism, 3(1), 40-52 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012010 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 8 editorial: creating a third space copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 8-20 terry mcdonough university centre at blackburn college terry.mcdonough@blackburn.ac.uk 1. a third space? 1.1 from prospect to print let’s do things a little differently. let’s not roll out a standard, by-the-numbers, editorial contriving an argument to prepend the articles collected here. the articles collected here are far more deserving and, i suspect, are the reason you’ve given your precious time to us. i will aim only to be honest and clear. clarity is important. i’m with orwell (1947) on this one: ‘our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts’. i’m also a linguist, so the prospect of engaging in wittgensteinian language games is anathema to my discipline (even if some have yet to realise this fact). in any case, a linguist without data is a very dangerous beast. so, let’s be dangerous by being honest. let’s be honest by being clear. in fact, let’s be as clear as a prism and see what we might refract. this is prism. it’s a peer-reviewed journal. we really want it to be an international, peerreviewed journal but we’re still working on adding substance to that adjectival claim. nevertheless, it is a real pleasure to finally approach the finish line and have the opportunity to launch our very first issue. it hasn’t been easy, we’ve learned quite a lot the hard way and, i can tell you, there have been times when we’ve howled in the wind. but we’re here now, in your hands, brimming with all the potential and possibility that a new publication brings. prism entered this world in september 2016 as an impulse to do something different. we felt that we were different, working as we did in a he institution in an fe environment. whilst we deliver undergraduate programmes on behalf of a top 10 university, we also march to the beat of an fe drum with heavier teaching loads, lower student numbers, and a still embryonic research culture. we recognised our location in a third space, somewhat ill-defined and unrecognised, so we sought to locate the essence of this third space by defining our own terms and our own agenda. our embryonic research culture, whilst lacking the monolithic and well-tested infrastructure of a large university, gave us the opportunity to determine how we might capture the output of our colleagues. we recognised, too, that we could extend our 9 reach to capture the output of colleagues at other institutions, regardless of scale, by opening up our space to all, and promoting the idea of doing things differently. difference is determined in contrast to that which exists as standard. our difference, i argue, emerges from the space we occupy along with the opportunities that this space generates. we have come to define our own research culture so it seemed only fitting that we might come to define our own publishing culture, too. we sought to make this culture open and transparent, where others may restrict; amenable to fresh and radical ideas, where others may prefer the stability of the same; and free to commission and edit according to our own values and standards, where others may prefer the ossified ideas and practices of established tradition. we sought, in all, to be the difference that had come to define us. there is, though, nothing new here: peer-reviewed, academic journals are commonplace. open access has been a stalwart of academic publishing since the early 20th century (swan, 2006). peer-review, a pre-requisite far older than we might have imagined. defined as a ‘quality control mechanism’ designed to ‘ensure that the reporting of research work is as truthful and accurate and possible’ (voight and hoogenboom, 2012), peer-review is ubiquitous in the world of academic publishing. whilst it might go wrong on occasion1, peerreview is essential if we are to maintain a semblance of quality and distinction. it is to this that we will now turn. 1.2 the royal society of edinburgh the conventions associated with the idea of a peer-reviewed, academic journal were first documented as editorial policy in 1752 by the royal society of london in philosophical transactions vol. xlviii. the notion of peer-review, however, came slightly earlier with the publication of the first volume of medical essays and observations by the society for the improvement of medical knowledge2 (kronick, 1990, p.1321). the scottish enlightenment is more popularly associated with robert burns, david hume and adam smith but it is to the members of the society for the improvement of medical knowledge that we owe a great debt. in the prologue to the first volume of medical essays and observations, the anonymised authors, listed only as ‘a society in edinburgh’, document their discontent with the current state of academic publishing. they identify the collections of the academia naturae curioforum (academy of sciences leopoldina, germany) as being of concern as ‘they omit several necessary articles, which, in our opinion ought to be taken in’ (p.xii). these contentions lead to the definition of an editorial policy that is hard to reject: …we do not however pretend by this power to reject observations, tho’ some circumstances are omitted, if they are otherwise useful, nor to suppress essays that are ingenious, tho’ the propositions they contain are contrary to our way of thinking. all we propose by reserving this choice of papers, is to acquaint the author of such omissions or objections as might be taken notice of, that, by supplying and correcting them, the work may be made more acceptable to the publick (p.xvi) 1 see the sokal affair for a famous example. 2 the society was granted a royal charter in 1783 and is now the world renowned royal society of edinburgh. 10 all submissions are welcomed, and open to consideration, as long as the authors exhibit the ‘virtues’ of ‘sagacity and knowledge, accuracy and candour’ (p.ix). assessing these virtues ought to be the task of learned experts in the field with the editorial board acting only as overseers with the simple task of ensuring that none are excluded on judgemental grounds. we can see, then, that the society for the improvement of medical knowledge offers us not only the first intimation towards a system of peer-review but also a clear definition of editorial policy. there ought to be no suppression of views that do not accord; only a mandate to ensure that views are communicated accurately and candidly to ensure that each is accessible to all. we can see, too, that this battle is far from over. 1.3 monopolies of knowledge we think. we write. we share. the universality of the human propensity for communicative exchange is pervasive in an age of global, digital technologies. whilst the technological means of exchange have been liberated, and have, by degrees, become increasingly accessible, the modes of exchange, in turn, have become highly instrumentalised. innis (1951) warns of ‘vast monopolies of communication’ where specialised knowledge is harvested as a commodity by mechanised institutions. following suit, parker (1988, pp.223-224) attests that: [s]ince 1945, we have thus witnessed the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon of a rapid and significant increase in the absolute general-informational density of advanced capitalist economies… combined with an increase in the relative concentration or monopolization of specialized knowledge. parker’s observation is that, whilst we have experienced an increase in the ‘general access to a basic level of cultural programming’ (1988, p.223), we have, in tandem, witnessed a decrease in general access to specialised exchange. technologies at once both liberate and constrain, creating an inverse proportionality between access and availability. this new relation supplants the old market binary of supply and demand. surplus value is generated, not by a pricing mechanism fixed relative to the material exchange of commodities, but in access to the commodity in the face of restricted availability. as a case in point, monbiot (2011) cites elsevier’s journal biochimica et biophysica acta as an exemplar with an annual subscription fee of $20,930 per annum. the economist (may, 2011) claims that, in britain, ‘65% of the money spent on content in academic libraries goes on journals, up from a little more than half ten years ago’. the emergence of such a specialised market is alarming in terms of both the commodification of knowledge, much of which is publicly funded research, and also the availability of knowledge. not everyone has access to a university library and, in many cases, access is only granted after enrolment which carries with it the burden of fees. and so, the marketisation of knowledge and educational commodities, restricts access in an age when the mechanisms of exchange are readily available and globalised. there are a host of other secondary effects worth exploring: the mistrust of experts, the proliferation of ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’, the ubiquity of false information and conspiracy theory: all concerns that currently plague western democracies3. 3 these concerns all warrant further exploration. i have yet to find a serious investigation into the relationship between restricted access to scientific research and the proliferation of the issues cited. 11 the commercial publishing world has, as gibson (2006) argues, ‘an increasingly harmful monopoly on a number of prestige journals which are essential to disseminating new ideas and research’. the restrictions on ownership, access and participation is, of course, a two-way street: if academics continue to provide content to commercial publishers despite the availability of open-access forums, we cannot simply blame the profit-driven motives of the private sector. this is an argument as old as the market: why produce, exchange, and consume goods that we find ethically dubious, or that produce tangible social ills? we all have a choice: another rule of the market, if we accept that one and all are rational actors. however, the nature of the digital space presents us with a single, defining feature in that the cost of material production is negligible. as mason (2015) argues ‘information goods exist in potentially unlimited quantities and, when that is the case, their true marginal production cost is zero’. the material capital to buy, or rent, the means of production is no longer an issue or, at the very least, is mitigated. commercial, academic publishing, much like other traditional media platforms, is a vestigial artefact from a pre-digital age. they are, according to mason’s analyses, wholly unnecessary, much like the family encyclopaedia has been usurped by wikipedia. there needn’t be a ‘monopoly of knowledge’ if we, as academics, choose to behave differently. 1.4 principles of a third space let’s return to our original commitment to clarity for a moment. i mentioned in a light-hearted way that my background is in linguistics. whilst i am a teaching practitioner, my involvement in the subject matter of educational theory and policy begins and end with my practice. this is prism’s coup de grace. as editor-in-chief i have no vested interest in the positions and particularities articulated in the field. i can, then, remain impartial, acting as an overseer of process, rather than an arbiter of judgment. i can honestly say that this might not be the case in my own discipline. like anyone, i assume, i might be more partial to submissions that are drawn from my own school of thought and, perhaps, even hostile to submissions from branches of linguistics that i feel have little merit in the 21st century. much like a doctoral viva voce may include a specialist from a related field, there is a significant benefit in a journal being managed by an editor-in-chief with no vested interest in the subject matter. i am, though, supported by an editorial team with a wealth of experience in the field as both researchers, practitioners, and assessors. i would offer this as our first principle and encourage other publications to follow suit. but, what of the other principles – how might we now round off this discussion with a definition of this elusive third space? between an equity of production and access to consumption, between a tacit freedom of expression and a barometer of scholarly quality, between a transdisciplinary nexus and the boundaries of a remit – this is the fluid terrain of the third space. much as we stand between the pragmatic and essential world of compulsory education and the free-ranging domain of research-led higher education, prism – as the name infers – is a third space open and available to all where our authors are as valued as our readership and where each are equal, welcomed and celebrated. we walk the line between the traditional, academic journal, where access for both authors and readers may be restricted, and the new world of open-access publishing, 12 where access is open to all and where experimentation is invited. in all, we hope to become something else entirely, what those learned fellows in the climate of edinburgh’s 18th century renaissance hoped – a place where works of ‘sagacity and knowledge, accuracy and candour’ might be made available and accessible to all. 2. overview of inaugural issue the inaugural issue seeks to promote plurality. it is on this basis that we present in this volume a range of disciplinary and methodological approaches sampled from a broad spectrum from a year 11 gcse drama class to an undergraduate environment in a traditional university. david allan examines the progression barriers affecting previously disengaged students. allan charts the experiences of a group of previously disaffected 14-16 year olds, alongside vocational learning tutors and further education teachers. challenging current policy, allan identifies an inversely proportional relationship between vocational skills and academic success which leads, in many cases, to young people abandoning learning altogether. a methodological ‘turn’ is documented in joanna neil’s auto-ethnographic approach to selfreflexivity in both artistic and pedagogic practice. neil presents an interview with the self as a way to both assess and re-observe the experience of creative-making. documenting the methodological approach, examining the applicability of the findings, and critiquing the ubiquity of the ‘self’ in digital media, neil offers a sometimes-intimate portrayal of the artist in situ whilst also accounting for the applicability of the method in arts-based teaching practices and beyond. katie strudwick conjoins pedagogic practice with the notional role of the student as producer. the marketisation of higher education in the uk has led to claims of the student being positioned as a passive consumer of knowledge, whereas the student-as-producer framework encourages the co-production of knowledge with students entering into collaborative relationships with academic staff. strudwick reflects on her own experiences at the university of lincoln, supplemented by an assessment of the policy framework along with an appraisal of the framework’s effectiveness in real-world situations. abdul aziz hafiz proposes a critical pedagogy for precarity as a response to the uk government’s employability in he agenda. calling for local, solidarity-based associational spaces, hafiz defines both the experience and practice of precarity in post-industrial landscapes, paying particular attention to the position of the precarious graduate in the neoliberal agenda and the ‘new’ working space. david hayes takes critical criminology out of the classroom and into the community with a focus on social learning and environmental responsibility. hayes situates active social learning within the domain of critical pedagogy and argues that critical engagement with environmental issues, which may not typify conventional notions of criminality, is an essential civic responsibility when faced with potential environmental catastrophe, in this instance, hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’. performance is central to helen eadon-sinkinson’s assessment of friere’s pedagogic strategies in the context of delivering a gcse drama syllabus to year 11 pupils. bringing in 13 boal’s theatre of the oppressed, eadon-sinkinson evaluates the transformational capacity of reflective learning strategies where performance becomes more than a mere reflection of study. in our review section, val todd explores field’s an adventure in statistics, a fictional novel designed to guide the undergraduate through the often daunting terrain of quantitative research methods. jacqueline dodding examines bakker and montessori’s collection complexity in education: from horror to passion. exploring the notion of ‘normative professionalisation’, the volume presents an anthology of thematically aligned articles. we hope this inaugural issue contributes towards broader debates, piques curiosities, and sets the standard for forthcoming volumes. taking a publication from conception to print has been a rewarding and insightful experience. thanks must go to the deputy editor, william card, the journal’s editorial team, the advisory board, and, of course, our authors, without whom nothing would have been possible. i hope all enjoy this issue and i hope there are many more to come. at the very least, i hope we have done things a little differently. references gibson, i. (2006). foreword. in jacobs, n. (ed.). open access: key strategic, technical and economic aspects. oxford: chandos publishing. innis, h. (1951). the bias of communication. toronto: university of toronto press. kronick, d.a. (1990). peer review in 18th-century scientific journalism. jama 263 (10). mason, p. (2015). postcapitalism: a guide to our future. london: penguin books. monbiot, g. (2011). academic publishers make murdoch look like a socialist. the guardian, 29th august, 2011. orwell, g. (1947). politics and the english language. london: penguin classics. parker, i. (1988). economic dimensions of 21st-century canadian cultural strategy. in parker, i., hutcheson, j., and crawley, p. (eds). the strategy of canadian culture in the 21st century. toronto: top cat. swan, a. (2006). overview of scholarly communication. in jacobs, n. (ed.). open access: key strategic, technical and economic aspects. oxford: chandos publishing. unnamed (2011). of goats and headaches. the economist, 26th may, 2011. voight, m. and hoogenboom, b.j. (2012). publishing your work in a journal: understanding the peer review process. international journal of sports physical therapy 7 (5). pp.452-460. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 128 raymond williams: the working-class academic copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 128-137 richard wyatt independent scholar r.n.wyatt@gmail.com abstract this paper highlights the continued relevance of the working-class academic raymond williams (31 august 1921 – 26 january 1988) to today’s students and academics. it will do this by introducing williams and his key ideas in the form of a short think piece. this overview can be used to compliment more in-depth studies for seeking to understand social phenomena. the key concepts introduced within this paper focus on, culture as a whole way of life, ‘structure of feeling’, williams’ debate with marxism, historical analysis and his approaches to methodology. 1. introduction raymond williams (31 august 1921 – 26 january 1988), alongside richard hoggart and e.p. thompson, are widely accepted as being the founding fathers of cultural studies (hargreaves and mcdonald, 2000). this study will help explain why the work of williams remains relevant to today’s students and scholars. it will set out to do this by exploring his key ideas for: culture as a whole way of life, ‘structure of feeling’, debates with marxism, historical analysis and approaches to methodology. it takes the form of a short ‘think piece’ and provides an overview of his key ideas, for complementing more in-depth studies of his ideas for understanding social phenomena. the work of williams, hoggart and thompson helped lay out a new approach to analysing culture. they rejected the premise advocated by predecessors that the products of ‘mass culture’ must be inferior to those of ‘high culture’ and favoured appreciation of how the prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 129 former might have some value (hall and whannell, 1964). williams (1958) believed that the ‘common culture’ of the everyday lives of ‘ordinary people’ could be both analysed and celebrated, rather than despised and denigrated as was the case in the past from scholars associated with earlier traditions of cultural analysis (inglis and hughson, 2003). williams, hoggart and thompson also provided the inspiration for further analysis of the complexities of social, political and historical conditions of cultural formations (hargreaves and mcdonald, 2000). williams made extensive contributions on a wide range of topics including cultural theory, cultural history, television, the press, radio and advertising (storey, 2001). williams (1961a) challenged the idea that the existing canon of english literature and ‘high’ culture can be the only way of understanding a ‘lived experience’ of a period. according to jones (2006), williams was able to do this by not rejecting ‘high culture’ for ‘low culture’ or for an anthropological conception of ‘way of life culture’; but by including all objective culture as a ‘documentary culture’ in the first stage of reconstructing a ‘structure of feeling’ of a period. this method based on its use in williams’ (1953) study on the structure of feeling in the 1840s, has been helpfully summarised by jones (2006, p. 22): it can be presented as four stages: (i) reversal of the literary selective tradition in order to generate a fuller field of documentary culture, (ii) location of this documentary culture within economic and technical changes within cultural institutions, (iii) location of these in turn within ‘the general social and political history of a period, (iv) establishment of links across these three fields using the concepts of ‘social character’ and ‘structure of feeling’. the purpose of using williams’ definition of documentary is that it allows for critical cultural analysis. this can take a form of analysis similar to that adopted with regard to the ‘ideal’; an act of critical sifting until the discovery of what arnold (1869) calls ‘the best of what is thought and said’ (p. 5). it can also involve culture being seen as the critical object of interpretative description and evaluation. finally, it can also take a more historical function, involving a critical reading of documents in order to measure their historical significance (storey, 2001). williams’ work was greatly influenced by his working-class upbringing in rural wales, following which he was able to secure an education at cambridge university in the 1940s. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 130 after graduating he acquired employment at oxford university as an adult educator, a position he held until 1961 when he was invited back to cambridge as a lecturer. he remained there until his retirement in 1983, having been appointed professor in 1974 (buchanan, 2010). many scholars such as storey (2001), barker (2008) and giulianotti (2005) argue that williams’ three most significant publications are culture and society (1958), the long revolution (1961) and marxism and literature (1977) due to the role they played in shaping and influencing cultural studies. whilst society has changed since the time williams was writing, i would like to suggest that his writing on class relations has maintained its relevance and still contains fruitful material for analysing the ordering of society. 2. culture as a whole way of life williams (1958) contested the widely-held belief that culture could be reduced to a set of artefacts by adopting as an alternative a more social definition insisting, ‘culture is not only a body of intellectual and imaginative work: it is also essentially a whole way of life’ (p.310). this led to a new emphasis on the cultural creativity of ‘ordinary’ people in ‘every day’ contexts of homes and work places. it resisted the conflation of working-class culture and popular culture by clearly distinguishing: …the extremely damaging and quite untrue identification of ‘popular culture’ (commercial newspapers, magazines and entertainments, etc.) with working-class culture. in fact, the main source of this ‘popular culture’ lies outside the working class altogether, for it is instituted, financed and operated by the commercial bourgeoisie, and remains typically capitalist in its methods of production and distribution. that working-class people form perhaps the majority of the consumers of this material … does not, as a fact, justify this facile identification. (williams, 1958, p. 425) williams also denied there was such an entity as ‘the masses’, as everyone was different and led their own lives; this helped cultural studies scholars conclude, ‘the telly-glued masses do not exist; they are the bad fiction of our second-rate social analysis’ (1961a, p. 361). therefore, ‘the masses’ was merely a derogatory term coined by those wishing to preserve their social privilege by defending an elite culture (carey, 1992). this approach could enable prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 131 academic writing and research to form a justification for the research of the working class and other marginalised cultures and communities. 3. ‘structure of feeling’ ‘structure of feeling’ was a concept williams (1961a) used to describe what he called a ‘lived culture’ that related to, ‘the meanings and values which are lived in works and relationships’ (p. 293). it can be used to describe: ‘a particular sense of life, a particular community of experience hardly needing expression, through which the characteristics of our way of life that an external analyst could describe are in some way passed, giving them a particular character and colour’ (p. 48). even though it is a vague term, hughson, inglis and free (2005) defined the notion as, ‘a collective mood that informs values and attitudes about life [in a particular social period]’ (p. 160). they noted that it does not always reflect dominant ideologies in society and whilst not isolated from these, it can however, demonstrate aspects of oppositional and alternative collective opinion. the ‘structure of feeling’ can represent differing class ‘social characters’ (jones, 2006); with the bourgeois social character established as dominant via, ‘its characteristic legislation, the terms in which were argued, the majority content of public writing, and the characters of men most admired’ (williams, 1961a, p. 78). this is contested by the social characters derived from the aristocracy and working class. an instance given by williams (1958) is the rejection of the bourgeois notion of service by the working class who instead adopt a culture of solidarity. an example being the working class’s own thriving culture and institutions which were rejected by the bourgeoisie and were based around, ‘the basic collective idea, and the institutions, manners, habits of thought, and intentions which proceed from this’ (p. 313) which emphasise ‘neighbourhood, mutual obligation, and common betterment’ (p. 15). he cites trade unions and the co-operative movement as examples of institutions created and inspired by these values. whilst not fully independent from capitalism, this form of culture differs considerably to bourgeois culture which is individualistic in nature (williams, 1958). williams (1958) was also keen to stress the significant difference between the cultural commodities created by the culture industry and what cultural forms individuals were able to make from such commodities. this added to the debate discussed in this study as to whether culture is actively made or solely consumed. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 132 williams’ writing (1961a; 1961b) made it clear that the structure of feeling is something other than ideology, as by ideology we mean as advocated by most marxists, a ‘relatively formalised belief system, where the belief system of the dominant class becomes the dominant ideology’ (milner, 2002, p. 73). in the long revolution, williams chose to use the term ‘social character’ instead of ideology. however, he was still clear on the distinction by stating that the, ‘structure of feeling … is different from any of the distinguishable social characters, for it has to deal not only with public ideals but with their omissions and consequences, as lived’ (1961a, p.80). 4. williams’ debate with marxism williams’ approach was sympathetic with the position of orthodox marxism as, for example, he accepted the marxist emphasis on class conflict. however, snedeker (1993) argues that williams did not take marxist literary criticism seriously in culture and society (1958); whilst in the long revolution (1961) he argues williams sought to oppose the economic determinism of marxism, substituting multiple dimensions of culture, politics, economy and family as an answer to the reductionism of the base-superstructure model of orthodox marxism. the theoretical position adopted by williams enabled scholars to negotiate the cultural radicalism associated with the historical materialism of the marxist tradition, and in so doing, open up a new intellectual space where culture becomes a mediator between individual experience and class relations. in the later part of his career williams became closer to the marxist tradition for example in the country and the city (1973) he began an engagement with the marxist form of analysis of the rural-urban nexus in the development of capitalism. williams’ (1977) work also began to become increasingly influenced by the marxist scholar antonio gramsci through his critical engagement with gramsci’s theory of hegemony: a lived hegemony is always a process … moreover…it does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. it has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. it is also continually resisted, limited, alternative political and cultural emphases, and the many forms of opposition and struggle, are important prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 133 not only in themselves but as indicative features of what the hegemonic process has in practice had to control (williams, 1977, pp. 112-113). so, for williams hegemony is a process of cultural domination which is constantly reforming in continuous conflict with oppositional forces. he argues dominant culture can be challenged by what he terms residual and emergent forces, with the former representing a residue ‘of some previous social and cultural institution and formation’ but still being significantly practiced and experienced in the present (williams, 1977, p. 122). an example according to ingham (1993) is the concept of community, as at times the notions of the way collective life “used to be” provide vehicles of opposition to dominant culture. as williams (1980) explains, they ‘represent areas of human experience, aspiration and achievement, which the dominant culture under values or opposes, or even cannot recognise’ (p. 42). this leads us to his concept of the emergent, where to continue with williams (1977, p. 123): by “emergent” i mean, first, that new meanings and values, new practices, new relationships and kinds of relationship are continually being created. but it is exceptionally difficult to distinguish between those which are really elements of some new phase of the dominant culture … and those which are substantially alternative or oppositional to it: emergent in the strict sense, rather than merely. williams (1980) develops the concepts of emergent ‘alternative’ and ‘oppositional’ culture; with an example of emergent alternative culture being when an individual simply finds a different way to live and wishes to be left alone with it – such as a ‘back to nature’ cult. whilst to be in an oppositional culture, an individual will find a different way to live whilst actively wanting to replace broader society such as radical eco-anarchist activists (mcguigan, 1997). these ideas are often incorporated into the dominant culture (becoming merely novel) but there are elements which are not, therefore becoming a form of resistance. modern day examples could include expanding democracy into areas of culture previously run privately in line with the dominant discourse of ‘neo-liberal’ capitalism (bryson, 2008). an example of an alternative culture would be a fan owned football club with oppositional culture including a co-operatively owned radical media outlet whose aim is to replace capitalism as the dominant economic system. these forms of analysis make williams’ work relevant for any student focusing on the debates within marxism and resistance to the dominant economic order. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 134 5. raymond williams, history and historical ethnography williams’ work can also be used within historical studies. on his death in 1988, his work was reviewed by the historian raphael samuel (1989) who argued that whilst williams was not a historian in the conventional sense, he showed great historical intelligence within his writings. he claimed williams was able to show this intelligence through his rigorous use of the key historical concept of change and continuity, whilst always maintaining a strong historical grasp of the deceptiveness of tradition: …he was not interested in history for its own sake, or even, to judge by his writing ‘as it happened’, but rather in how it could be used, the ’basic meanings’ it could be made to yield, and above all, the principle of hope that can be discovered in it’. (samuel, 1989, p. 151) williams studied the past in order to present a hopeful future. this can be seen in his study of the presentation of urban and rural life in the country and the city (1973) and through his study of english social criticism in culture and society (1958). history also informs his theoretical writing as emphasised in the previous section on his commentaries on hegemony in marxism and literature, and the development of the key theoretical categories of ‘the residual’ and ‘the emergent’ (williams, 1977, pp. 121-127). methodology is an important part of modern research and this part of the paper lays out why williams’ ideas are still incredibly useful for the modern researcher. barker (2008) stated that methodologies in cultural studies have a broad tolerance to a variety of approaches but their scholars have predominantly focused on qualitative approaches including ethnography and a range of textual approaches. even though williams did not carry out traditional ‘field work’ usually associated with this form of research, it was his epistemological approach which links him with the methodology of ethnography. aronowitz (1995) argued that williams’ work offered a form of ‘historical ethnography’ which is an important method that can be adopted by today’s researchers. crucial to this interpretation is williams’ (1961b) notion of ‘structure of feeling’, as the culture of a period of a given class. aronowitz (1995) argues that the ‘structure of feeling’ of a period can be identified through documentary analysis and in the specific case of williams, by reviewing texts and poems: prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 135 williams takes fiction not as “representation,” if by the term we signify the problematic of correspondence between text and context that is independent of it. rather, the text embodies its unique space and time; the characters of a novel or the poet’s evocations are as constitutive of the life world as a conversation between two bikers or dropouts in hedbige’s and willis’s texts. (aronowitz, 1995, p. 329) 5. documentary analysis ‘documentary analysis’ can be expanded beyond critically analysing text and poems, it can involve a variety of additional items including newspaper and magazine articles, diaries, autobiographies, official records, songs/chants and memorabilia which can be accessed from newspaper and local archives (finnegan, 2006). this approach can be linked with what williams (1961a) defined as the documentary category of culture. in this definition, ‘culture is the body of intellectual and imaginative work, in which, in a detailed way, human thought and experience are variously recorded’ (p. 57). for williams, documents are social constructs which are formed in the collective mode of community and not solely a product of individuality. in his essay, ‘structure of feeling and selective tradition’ he writes a clear argument for the use of documentary analysis in research. he states documents are able to express the culture (or ‘structure of feeling’) of a period in direct terms, which become increasingly significant when the living witnesses are silent (1961b). 6. conclusion to conclude, it is clear that the work of raymond williams still offers a unique opportunity to understand the ‘every day’ culture of people in the past and in the present day. his approach is important as it enables activities to be analysed as culture in the same way as ‘high’ culture of art or literature. his work also helps us to understand the centrality of culture to ‘everyday’ people and the role they play in actively creating, forming and developing the values within it. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 136 references arnold, m. (1869). culture and anarchy. oxford: oxford university press. aronowitz, s. (1995). between criticism and ethnography: raymond williams and the intervention of cultural studies. in c. prendergast (ed.), cultural materialism: on raymond williams (pp. 320-339). minneapolis: university of minnesota press. barker, c. (2008). cultural studies: theory and practice. london: sage. bryson, j. (2008). dominant, emergent, and residual culture: the dynamics of organizational change, journal of organizational change management, 21(6), 743 – 757. doi: 10.1108/09534810810915754. buchanan, i. (2010). dictionary of critical theory. oxford: oxford university press. carey, j. (1992). political correctness and cultural studies, journal of communication, 42(2), 56 – 72. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992.tb00778.x. finnegan, r. (2006). using documents. in r. sapsford and v. jupp (eds.), data collection and analysis (pp. 138 – 152). london: sage. giuianotti, r. (2005). sport a critical sociology. cambridge: the polity press. hall, s. and whannell, p. (1964). the popular arts. london: hutchinson educational. hargreaves, j. and mcdonald, i. (2000). cultural studies and the sociology of sport. in i. coakley and e. dunning (eds.), handbook of sports studies (pp. 48 – 60). london: sage. hoggart, r. (1958). the uses of literacy: aspects of working class life with special reference to publications and entertainments. harmondsworth: penguin. hughson, j., inglis, d. and free, m. (2005). the uses of sport: a critical study. abingdon: routledge. ingham, b. (1993). the meaning of development: interactions between “new” and “old” ideas. world development, 21(11), 1803–1821, doi:10.1016/0305-750x(93)90084-m. inglis, d. and hughson, j. (2003). confronting culture: sociological vistas. cambridge: polity press. jones, p. (2006). raymond williams’s sociology of culture: a critical reconstruction. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. mcguigan, j. (1997). cultural methodologies. london: sage. milner, a. (2002). re-imagining cultural studies: the promise of cultural materialism. london: sage. samuel, r. (1989). ‘philosophy teaching by example’: past and present in raymond williams, history workshop journal, 27(1), pp. 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/27.1.141. snedeker, g. (1993). between humanism and social theory: the cultural criticism of raymond williams, rethinking marxism, 6(1), 104-114. doi: 10.1080/08935699308658046. storey, j. (2001). cultural theory and popular culture. harlow: pearson education limited. thompson, e.p. (1963). the making of the english working class. london: victor gollancz. williams, r. (1953). the idea of culture, essays in criticism, 3(3), 239 – 266. doi: 10.1111/j.14602466.1992.tb00778.x. williams, r. (1958). culture and society. london: chatto and windus. williams, r. (1961a). long revolution. london: chatto and windus. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/dosearch?contribstored=bryson%2c+j http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534810810915754 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 137 williams, r. (1961b). structure of feeling and selective tradition. in j. mcguigan (ed.), raymond williams on culture and society (pp. 27 – 46). london: sage. williams, r. (1973). the country and the city. london: chatto and windus. williams, r. (1977). marxism and literature. oxford: oxford university press. williams, r. (1980). culture and materialism. london: verso. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 78 fe or not fe? a play in two acts copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 78-91 gary husband paul murphy university of stirling independent scholar, actor and director gary.husband@stir.ac.uk joel petrie1 university of huddersfield joel.petrie@hud.ac.uk overview the play that follows is a highly experimental work in progress. it is deliberately playful, and at times absurd, which all too often reflects the lived experiences of workers in the sector. the narrative form is employed to examine the potential challenges of engagement in scholarship, particularly methodology, for lecturers in further education embarking on research on, in and of the sector. the play also interrogates power dynamics in fe, its ethicality, and relationship to meaning and ownership of sectoral stories and history. a third and final act is currently under development, and the authors hope to stage a reading of the play at the arpce conference in 2020. 1 corresponding author prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 79 fe or not fe? a play in two acts trying to learn about social research is like walking into a room full of noisy people. the room is full of cliques, each displaying a distinctive jargon and cultural style… but they disagree with each other on such basic issues as the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge, and the concept of truth. carspecken setting an academic conference for delegates from fe and he, held in the atrium of a large fe college. the action begins at the close of the conference. dramatis personae fiona: an experienced fe lecturer recently embarked on belated postgraduate study. her colleagues know her as fe. she is quietly revolutionary, having discovered that anything other than seeming compliance is highly problematic in the current fe context. doc: an eminent marxist academic, dapper and prone to laughter, who favours ethnographic research. jacques: a postmodernist dressed entirely in black, with closely cropped hair and a finely manicured goatee. he speaks with a pronounced gallic accent, and chain smokes gauloises. his name is really bryn, and he hails from blaenau ffestiniog. dai the union: the product of generations of welsh mining socialists, he is the college's longest standing, most respected trade unionist. big mac: the college principal. in post less than a year, he has radically restructured the college away from community provision towards entrepreneurial engagement. his real name is lost to prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 80 history; but allies have nicknamed him big mac, and critics think he is contributing to fe’s macdonaldization. the bear: the institutional mascot. the college's new logo is branded prominently on each of its furry buttocks. note: fe operates in the play as an everywoman, representing the highly committed but often disgruntled women and men employed in the sector. many of the other characters should be regarded as grotesques, or akin to the stock characters in commedia dell'arte. any resemblance to actual people working in the post compulsory sector, living or dead, is purely coincidental… act 1 fe enters the atrium, where other delegates are assembled, sitting in animated groups. she cannot see any of her colleagues, so picks up a glass of wine and heads for the only table with a free chair. she joins two men, who are sitting in a silence that suggests recent hostility. fe: hi, i’m fe. i helped arrange the conference. did you enjoy it? jacques: comme ci comme ça. the papers were a little pedestrian, and these events are pointless – we are witnessing the death of the social sciences – what do you make of baudrillard? fe: well, i’m aware of his work… jacques: lyotard is more optimistic about the power of postmodernism to liberate, reinvigorate, and reinvent our studies. but i’m just here for the wine, which is especially poor by the way: nasty brûlé nose – it’s clearly not french… jacques goes to the bar. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 81 doc: neither, of course, is jacques… fe: eh? doc: …he wasn’t called that when i met him last. odd chap, but harmless. i’m doc, and the sessions i attended were very stimulating. did you get anything out of it? fe: yes… doc: but… fe: i was hoping to get more of an insight on theoretical perspectives. i’ve been doing small scale action research for years, but i’ve started a doctorate and have a paper to write comparing two methodologies. i’m struggling with it. thinking about trying an autoethnographic narrative analysis, not because it’s an approach i favour, just a way in. worried it might seem glib though, you know, too playful. jacques returns. jacques: why not be playful? the relationship between the signifier and the signified, between symbol and what it represents, is arbitrary. you’ve read saussure, of course? fe: er… doc: you’re aware of the risks of this approach though? i had a doctoral student who wrote his impressive thesis as a detective novel; he was grilled about methodologies at his viva. why, out of interest, start a doctorate now? fe: i regret not doing one after my first degree in english. the most dynamic lecturers were postmodernists then i found them fascinating but infuriating too. i was a big fan of rushdie and it was the time of the fatwa – arguments about death of authorship felt prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 82 politically impotent, self-indulgent even. jacques: but your understanding of la mort de l'auteur is partial and literal. it simply rejects finding meaning from identity as a sloppy approach: the author is simply a scripter and the work’s meaning changes with every rereading. jacques returns to the bar. doc: while jacques is away it might perhaps amuse you to learn that those murderers of the author, foucault and barthes, are perhaps now the most cited academic authors of their generation! but to business. what methodological positions interest you? fe: well that was the first problem. i’ve been reading around ethnography and postmodernism, and the more i read the less i feel i know. i’m attracted to ethnography because it feels most like the research i’ve done in the past. but i’m not yet clear about how to differentiate ethnography from critical ethnography, or indeed leftist ethnography; and the wackier extremes of ethnography seem postmodern in their approach too. i feel like i’m running faster and faster (and in circles) down the wrong road. jacques returns. he has two bottles of wine, and a bowl of crisps. doc: it might be useful for you to have a definition of the methodologies you’re comfortable with. jacques: as far as postmodernism is concerned don’t concentrate on what it is, instead think about what it is not. postmodern approaches critique the core belief systems underpinning modernism: just as we have outgrown the era of industrialisation, we have outgrown modernism; now we have mass-media, hyper-reality. doc: but history is important jacques, too. another way in might be to consider how these positions developed historically. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 83 jacques: puis-je vous aider? it isn’t entirely straight-forward re postmodernism, but nietzsche and wittgenstein aren’t a bad place to start. nietzsche rejected rationalists’ claims that they could describe objective reality; and wittgenstein argued that the limits of language are the limits of the world. then you’ve theorists like lyotard who argues that postmodernism is defined by incredulity regarding meta-narratives, you know those old-fashioned foundational theories beloved of many ethnographers, like marxism… (he casts an imperious, sneering glance at doc) …that make over-blown claims for their applicability across all time, space and context? anyway, lyotard would say meta-narratives are not objective, but are themselves the product of a particular sociohistorical context, and theorists like foucault have pointed out that modernist discourse emerged from the battle between humanist ideas and traditional religious worldviews. you should appreciate that a leftist ethnographic approach has about as much credibility as buying the bones of christ, or true pieces of the cross, from an unwashed, pock marked itinerant medieval monk; or bending over to kiss the ring of a lewd and lascivious renaissance potentate! fe: well thanks for that jacques… but if you’re right how “postmodern” is life for a child in, say… a developing village in africa? jacques: pah! culpability for social ills lies with smug rationalism. auschwitz, stalinism, the prospect of nuclear annihilation, and the rest are the poisonous legacy of so-called enlightened eurocentrism… fe: this isn’t wholly helpful… one of my problems has been the apparent fluidity of ethnography as a methodology, which i guess starts to suggest postmodernist positions? my head was swimming even before this discussion… jacques: i’d like to throw you a lifeline, mon ami; but i fear it gets even more complex. for instance, ethnography is also used by prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 84 postmodernists, in a way that challenges canonical research methodologies. and methinks you protest too much with faux-naïf methodological lack of insight. you are entirely clear, i think, of your political perspective on all of this, you’re just kicking against the pricks of difficult academic reading. fe: …a bit below the belt, no?! jacques: is it? i say you need more knowledge, and knowledge will give you more power over the subject matter; or as foucault would have it knowledge and power are inextricably linked, two sides of the same coin. doc: hmm… foucault wasn’t postmodernist, though; he rejected the notion outright and favoured kantian modernism… jacques: (cutting across doc) …are you saying baudrillard was right? fe regards jacques quizzically: he is clearly getting drunker, and more abusive, but also more erudite than he at first seemed. fe: ok ok, let’s not fall out. jacques: no indeed, i merely wish to stress the link between power and knowledge: pouvoir-savoir… doc: i fear jacques is still fighting the paradigm wars. jacques jumps to his feet, and waves a finger in doc’s face. jacques: the war is won. postmodernism dominates – no researcher with credibility can now claim neutrality, objectivity, or even access to a semblance of truth. everything the old guard believed in has melted into air, and dissolved into an insubstantial academic pageant, an ill-told fiction, a narrative... doc: of course, you’re keen on fictions… bryn! prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 85 fe: bryn? i’m a bit confused… jacques: (breaking into welsh) iesu grist, diawl …pardon… regard bien, mon ami; whilst your self-evident confusion is to be expected for someone from fe, not he. it’s really quite simple. you won’t know deleuze and guattari i suspect but look at these crisps. they are made from potatoes rhizomes… doc: potatoes are tubers, no? jacques: …they grow and spread under the earth, in networks or clusters. society is the same – things only have meaning when they come together to act as a whole, but the cluster isn’t intrinsically coherent. there are conflicts, everything is in process. this is the key conceptual underpinning of postmodernism, and dictates the type of data, theory or knowledge generated. only naively rude marxists like doc here believe in coherence, in old grand narratives anymore. ha! but i don’t mean to be rude, je suis desole, doc! jacques staggers to his feet and circles the table unsteadily to doc; giving him (as far as it is possible to tell from doc’s expression), a less than welcome postmodern embrace. lights fade to black. interval. act 2 fe, doc and jacques remain in discussion. dai the union enters. a moment later big mac appears in the doorway. clearly seething, he is loitering with intent. fe: ah, dai. this is jacques, and this is doc. doc, jacques, this prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 86 is my dear friend and colleague dai, did you catch his presentation? doc: nice to meet you. regrettably not. jacques: enchantez. moi aussi, non, tristement. dai: welcome to the comedy college, comrades; may i join you? dai sits. doc: so what was the focus of your presentation, dai? dai:(glancing towards the doorway) perhaps now isn’t the time, it appears to have been a touch contentious. (to fe) i’d like to hear how you're getting on with your research anyway. (to all) she’s started a doctorate you know – crazy undertaking! fe: yes i’m starting to come to that conclusion too. i wanted to examine the impact of a new principal and leadership style on the professional agency of lecturers in an fe college. i’m struggling with the methodologies i’ve chosen to consider ethnography and postmodernism. i could use some inspiration. dai: i’m just a rough old qualitative action researcher really, it’s all about the insider perspective, but i guess this is pertinent to ethnography? fe: i’ve found this great idea on insider research, dai – might appeal to you: the researcher must navigate what taboos to avoid and bureaucrats to placate! there’s another writer who argues insider/outsider research is a continuum with multiple dimensions, but isn’t that a bit postmodern in its fluidity? jacques: how could it not be? whatever position you assume you are taking you cannot escape postmodernity: everything you utter, dai, is mere ventriloquizing. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 87 dai: hmmm! nobody has their hand up my arse, brawd! if leftist ethnography refers to a tradition which explores the social significance of vocational education and training and provides a critical and structural understanding of educational relationships, then i’m all for it. if it explicitly derives from neo-marxism and recognises the pernicious, exploitative, oppressive impact of capitalism, then all the better. doc: that’s exactly the sort of educational research that i’m sympathetic to, dai. my perspective is that, as educational researchers, we need a return to a form of grand narrative lodged within an uneasy relation to modernism and the enlightenment process. jacques: merde! postmodernism refutes all of this, camarades. we rightly refuse the grand narrative and insist on the local and the specific. these sites of educational practice and struggle should be prioritised: the broader politics that sets such practices within a relational context are a chimera. doc: on a more practical point, fe, what data collection methods do you have in mind, and what knowledge will be generated. how much of a difference would it make if you adopted ethnography over postmodernism, or vice versa? fe: well this is the crux of it really isn’t it? whatever approach i take it’s the same reality i’d be describing. jacques: iesu…. fffffu!!…. mon dieu! va te faire enculer, crétin!!! you haven’t listened to word i’ve said. dai: perhaps she has but she doesn’t agree with you, comrade? doc: (to fe) how about this as an exercise? draft your research questions so that they explicitly reference the methodology, such as: a postmodern examination of the impact of a new principal and leadership style on the professional agency of lecturers in an fe prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 88 college. big mac has sidled over to the table. big mac: (to fe) have you sought approval for this research in college? i bloody well hope you aren’t getting funding from us; this sounds like a vanity project to me; and in any case, staff feedback is consistently positive about the college leadership! dai: ah, principal. bit tricky maybe, for anyone to get research approval or funding: the head of he was made redundant in the last restructure, and there isn’t a research ethics committee anymore. all of the funding for postgraduate study has been withdrawn, too. as for consistently positive leadership… you should have come to my presentation, perhaps? big mac: (incandescent with rage) oh, should i? i wanted to talk to you about that presentation – i’m hearing you were very negative about the college. you need to be more corporate in your thinking. and what the hell does “unbridled, rampant, neoliberal managerialism” mean? did you say that? dai winks at fe. big mac glares at him and storms off. doc: so, “big mac” – after the burger? (chuckles). fitting, given fe’s marketization! dai: i think it's more to do with a machiavellian preference for being feared rather than loved… doc: (to fe) do you think findings from your research could be in any way significant across the sector? fe: well, i’d like to think so. can’t really see the point of doing it otherwise. i’ve a feeling too that the knowledge generated by my study, through whatever lens, would be fundamentally utopian – and however apparently differentiated methodologies appear to be, prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 89 increasingly they seem kaleidoscopic, in flux, mutable… jacques: mutable – bravo! doc: i’m intrigued. what do you mean? fe: …i don’t think i’m endorsing a postmodernist perspective necessarily bryn, sorry, jacques… what i mean is that there seem to be so many overlapping positions, the one adopted could be arbitrary. the method adopted, the knowledge generated; so much will depend on the researcher’s ideological position, perhaps? and by utopian, doc, i would want the knowledge produced by my research to have the potential to engender change, or at the very least to acknowledge education as a site of struggle. dai: amen to that, comrade! fe: but i worry too, about the consequences of my postgraduate study. doc: how so? fe: despite the insanity of fe i love it, but what’s the value of a doctorate working in fe? will i end up being fe or not fe? jacques: (jumping up, slurring) ours! grisâtre ours!! there’s a fucking big bear over there!!! the college’s mascot ambles into view, followed by big mac. big mac: this is turning into an swp meeting, i see no benefit in engaging with this discussion further. dai, on further reflection your research constitutes gross professional misconduct your career is over. bear! escort dai off the premises and confiscate his staff card. jacques: putain! prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 90 dai and fe exit giggling conspiratorially, pursued by the bear. big mac follows them, threatening all manner of ruin. doc finishes his wine, shrugs, picks up his briefcase, and leaves. jacques clambers drunkenly onto the table, wine bottle in one hand, gauloises in the other. jacques: blydi hel, hen ddiawl gachlud! that is the highlight of the conference mes amis! it’s indicative of the entire postmodern aesthetic, a narrative pivot point, a turn from pompous academic discourse to camp farce! blackout. epilogue jacques is in a single spotlight. the atrium is suddenly full of the sweet airs of a thousand twangling instruments. jacques’ voice is now a rich baritone with a slight welsh lilt (not unlike richard burton). jacques: i have of late lost all my postmodern mirth. behind my posturing lies a fear that my postmodern idols have feet of clay: might they have simply replaced old with new meta-narrative gods of their own febrile imaginings? i fear too that this play displeased you; and make this speech to ask you for forgiveness. if this were play'd upon a stage now, i could perhaps justify my lapses as an improbable fiction, or defend a pragmatic completion as my last damned words. if all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, can actor network theory justify its lapses? at any rate, this rough research i here abjure; i’ll break with prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 91 methodology, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, i’ll drown my theoretical books. fade slowly to black. finis coda the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them. chomsky, foucault and rajchman our patrons the playwrights wish to acknowledge the constructive criticism and support of the following in this play’s development: professor james avis emeritus professor stephen j. ball emeritus professor frank coffield professor geoffrey elliot professor kevin orr dedication dedicated, with thanks, to salman rushdie. prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302208 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302208 84 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 theoretical approaches to the study of fundamental british values (fbv) jane louise mcdonnell school of youth, childhood and education studies, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, uk (j.mcdonnell@mmu.ac.uk) received: 05/12/2020 accepted for publication: 30/05/2021 published: 06/07/2021 abstract this article explores some of the critical instruments available to researchers investigating civic nationalist policy and practice via a review of the theoretical approaches that have been brought to bear on one such instance of national education policy, i.e. ‘fundamental british values’ (fbv) in england. the article offers a review of some key theoretical perspectives that have been applied to the study of fbv before offering some reflection on additional theoretical resources that might extend and compliment the insights that these provide. specifically, i argue that concepts and interventions from the theoretical literature described as ‘radical democracy’ might be of particular use in complementing and extending some of the analysis of fbv in the existing literature. keywords: fundamental british values, radical democracy 1. introduction this paper explores some of the critical instruments available to researchers investigating civic nationalist policy and practice via a review of the theoretical approaches that have been brought to bear on one such instance of national education policy, i.e. the adherence to, and promotion of, ‘fundamental british values’ (fbv) by teachers and schools in england. it is now over eight years since fbv were included in the revised teachers standards, as values that teachers must not undermine (dfe, 2011) and over six years since the government directed schools to ‘actively promote’ these values (dfe, 2014, p. 3). in the interim, a diverse body of research has emerged in response to the fbv policy framework and its enactment in schools. this paper offers a review of some key theoretical perspectives that have been applied to the study of fbv before offering some reflection on additional theoretical resources that might extend and compliment the insights that these provide. specifically, i argue that concepts and interventions from the theoretical literature described as ‘radical democracy’ (see, e.g. amsler, 2015) might be of particular use in complementing and extending some of the analysis of fbv in the existing literature. 2. background to fbv policy in england fundamental british values (fbv) are defined by the government as, ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:j.mcdonnell@mmu.ac.uk prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 85 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’ (home office, 2011, p. 107). fbv first appeared in an educational context as part of the revised teachers standards enforced from 2012 as values that teachers ‘must not undermine’ (dfe, 2011). however, they originated in the government’s antiterror legislation, specifically the revised prevent strategy of 2011 (home office, 2011). since 2014, all schools in england have been expected to ‘actively promote’ fbv as part of their existing provision for pupils’ ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural development’ (smsc) (dfe, 2014, p. 3) and since 2015, have a legal duty to do so (home office, 2011). 3. critical race theory, post-colonial theory and foucauldian analyses of power a combination of critical race theory (crt), postcolonial theory and foucauldian analyses of governmentality and surveillance have been put to use to interrogate both the origins of fbv and its impact on pupils, teachers and head teachers in schools. on the formation of the policy, lander (2016), crawford (2017) and winter and mills (2020) have all drawn on concepts from crt and post-colonial theory to illustrate where fbv sits within a longer history of racialized education policy in britain. lander (2016), for example, draws on kapoor’s (2013) application of the concept of ‘racial neoliberalism’ to the british policy context. lander’s (2016) work outlines how fbv forms part of a racialized approach to policy legitimated by the ‘war on terror’, which simultaneously targets minoritised citizens (principally british muslims) while muting discussion of structural racism. winter and mills (2020) and crawford (2017) also employ concepts from crt to argue that fbv represents an instance of ‘white supremacist’ education policy (gillborn, 2005 as cited in winter & mills, 2020, p.57). winter and mills (2020) also draw on innovative work from post-colonial theory (e.g. fanon, 2005, as cited in winter & mills, 2020, p. 47) to offer a ‘psychopolitical’ interpretation of how the dynamics of racism work through fbv. they identify processes of disavowal, white amnesia and fantasy operating within the policy to argue that fbv operates as a white defence mechanism against the perceived threat of the muslim ‘other’. foucauldian concepts of the surveillance, governmentality and disciplinary logics also inform these analyses of how fbv operate within the education system as part of racialised education policy. empirically, researchers have drawn on this combination of theoretical perspectives to investigate the securitising effects of fbv in schools, as teachers are effectively asked to become ‘instruments of surveillance’ (lander, 2016). elton-chalcraft et al. (2017) explore the stereotypical understandings of britishness and processes of racialised ‘othering’ amongst student teachers of education within a performative, standards-driven landscape of initial teacher education that allows little room for critical engagement with either racism or britishness. panjwani (2016) has reported on how the racialised logic of surveillance affects muslim teachers in particular, framed as both a threat to security and as agents of state security. farrell’s work with student teachers of religious education (re) (farrell, 2016; farrell & lander, 2019) illustrates how teachers are subjected to the racialised, securitising agenda of fbv but also how they find ways to resist such discourses, often with reference to the critical pluralist tradition of phenomenological re. this body of research and scholarship has been important in highlighting how fbv operates within the ‘racialised and performative context’ (elton-chalcraft et al., 2017, p. 33) of education policy. an important concern within this literature is the increased securitisation of education, though winter and mills (2020) caution against this, arguing that it risks presenting education as innocent rather than recognising its long-standing institutional position in the militaristic project of colonialism. this work has also been important in exposing the contradictions, tensions and hypocrisy inherent in a policy that purports to promote democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual tolerance and respect, while eroding democracy and often denying security, freedom and equality to certain sections of the population. while foucauldian analysis often focuses on constraint, some of the research adopting these perspectives has also been significant in analysing teachers’ resistance to the policy, for example through ‘agonistic’ classroom approaches in certain areas of the curriculum such as re (farrell, 2016; farrell & lander, 2019). prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 86 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 4. theories of national identity, political community and democratic education theories of national identity and political community have been combined with political theory to explore the possibilities inherent in fbv for contributing to democratic and citizenship education, variously understood. in terms of the policy’s formation, starkey (2018) has argued that, through the introduction of fbv, a closed, ethnically nationalist conception of political community has replaced the more open, dialogical and civic conceptions previously found in citizenship education. developed through the crick report (1998, as cited in starkey, 2018, p. 150) and modified to explicitly address diversity following the ajegbo report (2007, as cited in starkey, 2018, p. 155), citizenship education in england, starkey argues, provided a dialogic and constructivist pedagogic space for the promotion of critical thinking as part of a pluralist approach to democratic education. he posits education for cosmopolitan citizenship, in which political community is conceived more broadly and human rights are privileged, as a preferable alternative to fbv. healy (2019) similarly questions the possibility of fbv overcoming essentialist, ethnic and cultural conceptions of citizenship because of a lack of theoretical engagement with theories of national identity and political community. drawing on conceptions of liberal nationalism (miller, 1998 as cited in healy, 2019, p. 425), she argues that for fbv to achieve any potentially unifying liberal or civic nationalist agenda, it would need to engage more seriously with dimensions of political belonging, including formal membership, a sense of belonging and the perception of belonging from others. empirically, mcghee and zhang (2017) draw on theories of liberal democracy, which view the cultivation of critical thinking skills and autonomy as important pre-requisites for creating and maintaining a liberal democratic society (e.g. macedo, 2000 & gutmann, 1987, as cited in mcghee and zhang, 2017, p. 943). they apply this theory to their empirical work investigating the responses of schools to fbv, arguing that despite the ‘top-down’ approach policy, schools are finding ways to mitigate the securitising elements of fbv and incorporate the kinds of skills and attributes that contribute to liberal democratic citizenship education. vincent (2019) draws on the theories of national identity referred to in healy’s (2019) work, amongst other theoretical perspectives, in her largescale investigation into schools’ enactment of fbv. she finds that any potential for fbv to contribute to a liberal nationalist project based in dialogic consensus over shared civic values are undercut by the essentialist rhetoric surrounding fbv and the tendency of schools to represent britain in culturally stereotypical terms. sant and hanley (2018) also address extant theories of national identity to explore the potential of fbv in terms of a civic nationalist project in education but combine this with concepts from radical democracy in their analysis. specifically, they work with laclau’s understanding of the democratic sphere as one of hegemonic struggle between competing versions of identification with an external political order (laclau, 1990; laclau & zac, 1994, as cited in sant & hanley, 2018) in their research with student teachers. this perspective on the unstable, incomplete and constantly contested nature of the democratic and political sphere allows them to shift the focus from the competing versions of britishness (in terms of content or identity) to processes of identification. they argue that teachers’ existing perceptions of the nature of political community are important in their interpretations of fbv. if teachers already understand national identity as being constantly in a process of formation, contestation and struggle, then that democratic struggle can be brought meaningfully into classroom practice via engagement with ‘british values’ (sant & hanley, 2018). this body of literature, while not ignoring the important contributions on the racialised and securitising aspects of fbv, addresses the policy from a different perspective. these authors address the policy’s stated intention to promote liberal democratic values and interrogate the extent to which this is possible within the current policy framework. this research is particularly helpful in highlighting what possibilities for democratic education may be inherent in the policy despite its origins in the securitising ‘war on terror’ agenda. these studies approach democracy from different perspectives –liberal, dialogic democracy in mcghee and zhang’s (2017) work, cosmopolitan democracy in starkey’s (2018) research and radical democracy in sant and hanley’s (2018) study. arguably, however, all conceptualise democratic education via processes that biesta (2006) has described as ‘education for democracy’ (teaching young people the prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 87 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) skills and dispositions needed to become democratic citizens) or ‘education through democracy’ (providing experiences of democratic processes for young people in educational settings that they might extend to their lives beyond school). 5. theories of religion, secularism and values education some researchers have explicitly drawn on theories of religion, secularism and values in relation to fbv. panjwani (2016) applies concepts from both political theory and the study of religion to analyse muslim teachers’ responses to fbv. he refers to the tradition of modernist islam, along with rawls’ concept of ‘overlapping consensus’ (rawls, 1993, as cited in panjwani, 2016, p. 334) to interpret the views expressed by teachers in his study that there was no fundamental incompatibility between islamic values and british values and, in the case of some teachers, that these were complementary. in doing so, panjwani’s (2016) work challenges the theories of incompatibility between islam and ‘the west’ that have been influential on the policy discourse surrounding fbv. panjwani’s work is significant in taking religion seriously, on its own terms, and drawing on important theoretical concepts in the study of religion. in describing the interpretative process behind modernist islam that might explain the views of the teachers in his study, panjwani (2016, p. 33) reminds us of, ‘the continual role of interpretation in the life of a religious community’. vincent’s (2018) work also addresses religion overtly. here, she draws on theories of post-secularism (dillon, 2012, as cited in vincent, 2018, p. 229) to illustrate how fbv positions different religions and religious adherents both the implicitly, though ‘de-theologised’, christian values sanctioned by the policy and its ‘othering’ of muslims. empirically, there is evidence not only in vincent’s (2018) research but also in mcghee and zhang’s (2018) work that schools (both faith and nonfaith schools) are adopting fbv as part of their overall school ethos and/ or approach to values education in ways that are either implicitly or explicitly informed by (christian) religious values. there is less published evidence to suggest that muslim and other faith schools are also adopting fbv in this way, though this would be an interesting area for further research. this body of literature opens up up broader questions about the place of fbv within values education. vincent (2018, p. 2) has described fbv and character education as ‘two forms’ of the ‘current wave of values education’ gaining hold in schools. as panjwani (2016, p. 331) has observed, ‘with hindsight, we may say that the focus on the adjective ‘british’ stole the limelight leaving very little space to discuss more important issues around the utility and adequacy of the proposed values themselves’. 6. overlaps, omissions and insights clearly there are a number of overlaps between the theoretical perspectives and as i have outlined them above. a number of the research studies cited appear (or could appear) in more than one of the three main combinations discussed. there are also other theoretical perspectives that have been omitted (see, e.g. revell & bryan’s (2016) study of staff appraisals via bauman’s concept of ‘liquid modernity’). the above review is not intended to be comprehensive or definitive. however, i would argue that it does reflect some of the major theoretical insights that have been brought to bear on the study of fbv thus far. all of the theoretical approaches outlined above have shed light on the formation and enactment of fbv as an instance of civic nationalist education. they have illuminated some of the main problems of the policy, indicated some alternative approaches and asked important questions about how teachers, schools and pupils are being affected by this initiative. in the concluding section of this paper, i outline some additional theoretical tools that might be applied to the study of fbv to complement these perspectives. 7. insights from radical democracy? as noted above, sant and hanley’s (2018) study of fbv represents an application of ideas from ‘radical democracy’ to the sphere of civic nationalist education. they proceed from a theoretical framework which makes space for the possibility that the external political order (in this case the nation) is something that is never defined, complete or resolved but is constantly in the process of being constructed, through hegemonic struggle (sant & hanley, 2018, p.322). other theoretical prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 88 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) tools drawn from the sphere of ‘radical democracy’, which also view the political order in contingent, unstable and volatile terms, might be helpful in opening up further questions in relation to fbv. specifically, i want to suggest three ways in which insights from ‘radical democracy’ might help to add to the theoretical analysis of fbv. along with laclau, mouffe (2005) has argued for a radically altered view of democracy based on “the creation of a vibrant, ‘agonistic’ public sphere of contestation, where different hegemonic political projects can be confronted” (2005, p. 3). mouffe (2005) stresses that an agonistic public sphere would be founded on the democratic principles of liberty and equality but would simultaneously allow for disagreement over interpretation of these values. for mouffe, these values are not fixed or universal values but are themselves subject to contestation. meanwhile, rancière, whose work has also been characterised as belonging to the field of ‘radical democracy’, characterises democracy as a disruptive and dynamic movement that ruptures the existing political order, leaving traces of equality in its wake (rancière, 2006). for rancière, political change happens when those who are excluded from playing a full role in the government of a community claim their equality with those who do, thereby expanding the public sphere and supplementing the range of political subjectivities already visible. he refers to disputes between striking workers and their masters in nineteenth century france (rancière, 1992), the civil rights movement in the usa and revolutionary declarations on the rights of woman (rancière, 2006) as examples. for rancière such moments are also aesthetic, since they disrupt the ‘distribution of the sensible’ causing a shift in what is ‘sayable, doable and visible’ (2004, p. 13). firstly, insights from the application of crt and postcolonial theory to fbv have highlighted the contradictions inherent in a policy that purports to promote democracy, while simultaneously undermining that democracy and denying freedom, equality and security to certain sections of the population (lander, 2016; winter & mills, 2020). for rancière, such contradictions in declarative governmental statements about democratic rights provide important opportunities for political action. he refers to ‘syllogisms’ (2006; 1992) that can be brought into play to force the expansion of the public sphere and the creation of supplementary political subjectivities. for example, rancière argues that it was the contradiction inherent in the constitution of the usa, which claimed equality for all while denying that equality to african americans via state laws, that the civil rights movement brought into play, creating new political subjectivities and leaving traces of equality in its wake (2006, p.61). similar contradictions within fbv, as an instance of education policy, might also be brought into play to expand the equality and freedom it purports to promote. secondly, insights from foucauldian analysis have highlighted the ways in which fbv exerts power over teachers but also how teachers resist the securitising logic of fbv through critical work in classrooms, sometimes involving ‘agonistics’ (farrell, 2016). mouffe’s concept of ‘agonism’ as the contestation between radically opposed political projects, and even between competing interpretations of liberty and equality, have the potential to strengthen such insights. framing educational spaces as the site of agonistic contestation over differing and sometimes competing values could be one critical and creative response to fbv. thirdly, insights from political theory, as applied to fbv, have included discussions of the possibilities inherent in fbv for democratic education, despite its securitising origins. such work has tended to adopt an understanding of democratic education as a process of ‘learning for’ or ‘learning from’ democracy (biesta, 2006). mcdonnell (2014) has combined rancière’s (2006) insights into democracy with biesta’s (2010; 2006) approach to democratic education as a process of learning from experiences of democracy in everyday life. viewed through the lens of rancière’s writing, democratic learning can be understood as learning from significant moments of rupture in the existing political order, moments that also have an aesthetic impact in terms of what become visible, sayable and doable (mcdonnell, 2014). when applied to fbv, this perspective suggests further questions for future research, including, for example, to what extent does fbv allow for learning from disruptive moments of democracy that pupils encounter in their everyday lives – both within and outside school? prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 89 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 8. concluding remarks in this paper, i have outlined some theoretical perspectives that have been brought to bear on fbv, as an instance of civic nationalist education. this outline is neither comprehensive nor definitive but highlights some of the key theoretical tools available to researchers in this area. these include combinations of crt, post-colonial theory and foucauldian analysis, theories of national identity and political community addition, and theories of religion, secularism and values. in addition, i have offered some suggestions as to where theories of ‘radical democracy’ might help to supplement, strengthen and extend analysis of this policy area. these suggestions relate to extensions of the first two combinations of theoretical perspectives outlined above. with regard to the third set of theoretical perspectives (theories of religion, secularism and values), i would simply remark that this is an important but, as yet, relatively under-researched aspect of fbv. further studies addressing the role of fbv within the broader nexus of values education policy would be a welcome addition to the field. 9. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 10. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 11. references amsler, s. s. (2015). the education of radical democracy. london and new york: routledge. biesta, g. j. (2015). beyond learning: democratic education for a human future. london: routledge. crawford, c. e. (2017). promoting ‘fundamental british values’ in schools: a critical race perspective. curriculum perspectives, 37(2), 197204. dfe [department for education] (2014). promoting fundamental british values as part of smsc in schools. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pro moting-fundamental-british-values-through-smsc dfe [department for education] (2011). teachers’ standards. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen t/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6 65520/teachers__standards.pdf elton‐chalcraft, s., lander, v., revell, l., warner, d., & whitworth, l. (2017). to promote, or not to promote fundamental british values? teachers’ standards, diversity and teacher education. british educational research journal, 43(1), 29-48. farrell, f. (2016). ‘why all of a sudden do we need to teach fundamental british values?’ a critical investigation of religious education student teacher positioning within a policy discourse of discipline and control. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 280-297. farrell, f., & lander, v. (2019). “we’re not british values teachers are we?”: muslim teachers’ subjectivity and the governmentality of unease. educational review, 71(4), 466-482. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-fundamental-british-values-through-smsc https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-fundamental-british-values-through-smsc https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665520/teachers__standards.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665520/teachers__standards.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665520/teachers__standards.pdf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism mcdonnell (2021) prism 90 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) healy, m. 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(2016). towards an overlapping consensus: muslim teachers’ views on fundamental british values. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 329-340. rancière, j. (2006). hatred of democracy. london and new york: verso. rancière, j. (2004). the politics of aesthetics. london: continuum. rancière, j. (1992). on the shores of politics. london and new york: verso. revell, l., & bryan, h. (2016). calibrating fundamental british values: how head teachers are approaching appraisal in the light of the teachers’ standards 2012, prevent and the counter-terrorism and security act, 2015. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 341-353. sant, e., & hanley, c. (2018). political assumptions underlying pedagogies of national education: the case of student teachers teaching ‘british values’ in england. british educational research journal, 44(2), 319-337. vincent, c. (2019). cohesion, citizenship and coherence: schools’ responses to the british values policy. british journal of sociology of education, 40(1), 17-32. vincent, c. (2018). civic virtue and values teaching in a ‘post-secular’world. theory and research in education, 16(2), 226-243. winter, c., & mills, c. (2020). the psy-securitycurriculum ensemble: british values curriculum policy in english schools. journal of education policy, 35(1), 46-67. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-strategy-2011 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-strategy-2011 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 10 a life lived in class: the legacy of resistance and the enduring power of reproduction copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 10-22 diane reay university of cambridge dr311@cam.ac.uk abstract i have spent my whole life in ‘class’, first as a working-class girl and then as a primary school teacher, and later as an academic. my academic career spans over twenty-five years taking the work of pierre bourdieu to the limit. taking bourdieu’s work to the limits is to engage with his research affectively as well as intellectually, to recognise our own social and academic positioning in the same powerful way he recognised and worked with his own autobiography (bourdieu, 2007). it also requires the deconstruction and reconstruction of his concepts in relation to our own distinct experiences. in this article i attempt to tease out the many different and antagonistic embodiments of the relationship between a habitus and a field, taking myself as a case study. i am going to focus on two fields: the working-class coal-mining community of my childhood and youth, and the educational system. the difficult thing is not to rise in the world, but, while rising, to remain oneself jules michelet (1846) bourdieu’s concept of habitus is the theoretical tool he employs to explain how history becomes embodied in the individual in the form of dispositions that remain powerfully linked to economic and cultural background (reay, 2004). bourdieu (2007, p. 22) writes in sketch for a self-analysis that ‘the space of possibilities is realised in individuals exercising an attraction or repulsion that depends on their weight in the field’ but weight in the field is always a consequence of an originary habitus even for those of us whose habitus has been prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 11 transformed. he argues that we cannot understand habitus without analysing the formation of the dispositions associated with the position of origin: experience linked to one's social past can and must be mobilised in research, on condition that it has previously been submitted to a rigorous critical examination. the relation to the past which remains present and active in the form of the habitus has to be socio-analysed. (bourdieu 2007, p. 113) figure 1: working class siblings (1959) there were many powerful dispositions associated with my position of origin. in the tough coal mining community i grew up in, there were powerful binary discourses of ‘them and us, the bosses and the workers, the working classes and the middle classes. my great grandmother, who was still alive when i was a little girl, would spit at the radio every time a member of the royal family or an aristocrat was mentioned. she would spit more if they were actually talking. we were told life was hard, unfair and that our fate was a constant diet of exacting work. my father would always tell his children we were just as good as anyone else, but the subliminal message was of course that we were not. this message was reinforced by prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 12 the educational system where, as free school meal children, we had to line up after the “normal” children and have our names read out after everyone else. such a relationship to the world generates powerful dispositions of opposition, obduracy, defiance, rigidity but also those of solidarity, determination, single-mindedness, and self-reliance; a habitus of recalcitrance (skeggs, 2004, p. 89). less palatable but more difficult to own are those dispositions of shame and inferiority. alongside the opposition and resistance there was a powerful internalisation of the judgments we received from wider society, that we were inferior and those judgments, reinforced by my parents’ feelings that they were never good enough, generated enduring dispositions of poor confidence, self-loathing and low selfesteem. figure 2: a working class family (1956) i am not sure what readers notice in this photo of me and my family from the 1950s, but i see the defiant abject, but shining through the abjection is my mother’s fierce resolve. she had eight children but continued to wear a 23-inch elastic band around her waist into her sixties. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 13 i hated my schooling. i can say that now, but for many years it seemed ungrateful to feel this way. i am one of bourdieu’s oblates: the teacher of humble origins who owes their whole education, culture, training and career to the state education system (bourdieu, 1990a). i felt i had been lucky, a chosen escapee. yet many years later when i tried to develop a socioanalysis of my own trajectory, i realised i had fought for every educational advance. my educational experiences were pitiless and harrowing. my year three teacher turned out to be the woman on the posh private estate i had taken three of my younger siblings and three other children for a walk around. when we tried to smell the flowers growing over the wall of her front garden, she called us “scum” and told us to go back to where we had come from. when i walked into her classroom a few months later on my first day at junior school, there was a mutual shock of recognition. despite all my earlier efforts, i was once again put on the council estate table. i spent a lot of time that year standing on a chair with a dunce’s hat on my head. one boy in my class joked that the “d” must stand for “diane” because i got to wear it so much. however, to the amazement of the other children i passed the 11 plus without any practice, or the tutoring nearly all the middle-class children received. one girl said, “there must be a mistake diane can’t have passed”, but i had. grammar school was both an escape and a torment. i was in the top set, one of only two working class girls, and the judgments were still raining down on me. my math teacher in year 8 accused me of being a liar, a thief and a cheat, and because parents like mine never went into school it was the maternity ward sister who had delivered me, the mother of another girl in my class, who finally came in to defend me and prevent me from being excluded. i am going to write about just one day of many long days of terror, anxiety and overwhelming fear of failure that epitomizes the resisting habitus – my first day at school! i want you to picture a scene in a small town primary school on the edge of the coalfields in derbyshire in the mid-1950s. a little girl barely aged five has been gently pushed through the school gate by a harassed mother with baby in pram, a 2-year-old sat on top, and a crying 3year-old clutching the bar at the side of the pram. the mother rushes off. the little girl is already late, and it is her first day at school. she cautiously makes her way to the front entrance and a kindly secretary ushers her into the reception classroom. lingering at the door the little girl immediately notices a number of things. first, roy machin and raymond wilson, two boys from her council estate are sitting at a table laboriously copying the letters on a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 14 sheet of paper. doris and edith, also from the estate, are sitting opposite them. her eyes swivel round the classroom. at the other tables, unknown children are reading. the little girl instantly recognises the very familiar janet and john reading series. she and her mother had been reading the books since she was three and she had recently started to teach her younger sister to read book one. the teacher looks up, smiles, and asks her name, then walks over to the desk to check the register. “sit over there,” she says pointing to a seat between roy and doris. the little girl hesitates. she wants to read, and she can already write the alphabet on her own. she does not need to copy. the little girl's father has told her two things about school "be polite and put your hand up when you ask anything," and “always speak out if things are unfair.” she puts her hand up. the teacher frowns, a twinge of irritation fleeting across her face. “yes,” she enquires. the little girl says very slowly and solemnly, “please miss, i can read. can i sit at one of the other tables?” the teacher’s frown deepens. “you sit where you are told!” the little girl reluctantly slides into her chair but refuses to pick up a pencil, stung by the unfairness of it all. she wrestles with herself and fidgets until the teacher comes across and this time raises her voice. “what on earth is the matter with you child?” the little girl looks up and says, “but miss, i can read!” she is made to stand in the corner with her face to the wall for her insolence, but the next day she is moved to a table of readers. this is a move away from the children i know, and am familiar with, to a group whose mothers have told them not to sit with children like me. to remain with my friends means to not progress educationally, while to join those who are seen to be educational achievers is to be positioned as the unwelcome outsider. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 15 i want to suggest the dispositions of the resisting habitus were already formed in that five-year-old; that they are evident in the stubborn uncompromising oppositional stance i took to the unfairness of authority. but at the same time the dispositions of solidarity, that were part of the life blood of my coal mining community, were already under threat, powerfully in tension with a hyper-competitive streak that was encouraged by both my parents. that was the first, but far from the last, time i felt a deep sense of relief mingled with fear and an acute sense of disloyalty. stubborn determination combined with a strong competitive streak became the hallmark of my schooling. speaking of resistance bourdieu (in bourdieu and waquant, 1992) argues that intellectuals often forget that the dominated are socialised by the very conditions in which they live, and that they are therefore often determined, to varying degrees, to accommodate to their situation, lest the world be totally unliveable for them. through much of my schooling, and later university experience, the world verged on being unliveable for me. we cannot make sense of habitus without seeing it in psychological and emotional terms, and in relation to the symbolic violence individuals face. i suggest that those of us who end up working with bourdieu do not do so by chance and happenstance. his texts emerge out of, and resonate with, the resisting habitus. for bourdieu (1998, p. 56) 'what is problematic is the fact that the established order is not problematic'. he saw research as not just about the production of knowledge, but as part of the struggle to generate social change through providing different ways of seeing the social world: scientific explanation should teach the researcher where his liberties are really situated and resolutely to refuse the infinitesimal acts of cowardice and laxness which leave the power of social necessity intact, to fight in himself and in others the opportunist indifference or conformist ennui which allows the social milieu to impose the slippery slope of resigned compliance and submissive complicity. (bourdieu, 1998, pp. 4-5) however, for me to conform to the values and requirements of the status quo would not be opportunism but defeatism. resigned compliance and submissive complicity when you are at the bottom of the social hierarchy is to accept your own exploitation and oppression. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 16 yet, i argue that even in early childhood there were strongly ingrained dispositions of fatalism in my habitus: not fatalism in the traditional sense of despair and passivity, but rather that i had no choice. i was caught up in a family project of social mobility that had been decided for me before i was born. bourdieu is not just an academic whose work personifies a tension between resistance and reproduction, there is a parallel tension between agency and structure. we socially mobile, especially those like me who supposedly personify a “rags to riches” trajectory, represent the agentic among the working classes, but i argue that my propulsion was a strange sort of agency little to do with free will and choice. i had to be socially mobile. there was a long-standing historical rage in my family about the way the world was and still is. my great grandfather went to prison in the great depression of the 1930s for punching and knocking-out one of the two police constables who tried to caution him for poaching a rabbit. he spent 9 months in derby jail. my great grandmother was arrested for breaking the first newly installed plate glass window in the town my family lived in. it belonged to an alderman and richest man in the town. she told the magistrate he deserved it for showing off. my father once walked out of his colliery in protest at the safety conditions. his mates at work used to joke he had gone on strike on his own. i strongly believe my disposition to resist, to refuse to compromise or comply are rooted in an historical family habitus characterised by righteous indignation and defiance, engrained not only in my parents’ generation but generations before. my family history haunts me, but its effects are not ephemeral and shadowy. they are powerfully tangible. i have written extensively of habitus-as-history and bourdieu asserts that: in each of us, in varying proportions, there is part of yesterday’s man; it is yesterday’s man who inevitably predominates in us, since the present amounts to little compared with the long past in the course of which we were formed. (bourdieu, 2000, pp. 78–79) one of bourdieu’s earliest articles is called the dead seize the living. thumping policemen, breaking the windows of capitalists, organising a one-man strike, are part of a family history of opposition to the way things are that has had a searing impact on the way i prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 17 am. such actions are the outward expression of a habitus of recalcitrance. as skeggs (2004, p. 89) argues: we also need to be able to understand the habitus of recalcitrance, of nonbelonging, of no-caring, those who refuse to make a virtue out of necessity, the ‘f*** off and ‘so what’ of utterances, the radical emptiness of the habitus, one that does not want to play the dominant symbolic game and accrue any value? that legacy of recalcitrance is sedimented in my bones, my physiology, in constant war with a hyper-competitive conforming self. the definition of the recalcitrant is one who has an obstinately uncooperative attitude towards authority or discipline, and although i far too often comply and compromise, there are key points when a stubborn refusal and defiance takes over and i find myself, often against my own intellectual “best judgment”, resisting. bourdieu (1990b: 90) argues that the subject is not the instantaneous ego of a sort of singular cogito, but the individual trace of an entire collective history, and i would argue that the traces of a collective history are evident throughout my life. bourdieu (2007, p. 110) writes of having to practice ‘a kind of semi-controlled schizophrenia’ and i argue that many of those of us from working class backgrounds who become academics are engaged in the constant ‘conciliation of contraries’ that generates bourdieu’s cleft habitus. (bourdieu, 1999). habitus is fundamentally about the integration or the lack of integration of the disparate experiences that make up a biography (bourdieu, 1984) but it is when there is a lack of integration that bourdieu writes about the cleft habitus. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 18 figure 3: first year at university (1968) my grammar school headteacher told me: ‘‘girls like you do not go to university.’’ she was right. i stubbornly persisted only to arrive at my russell group institution to find there were no ‘‘girls like me.’’ if they did exist, they were far more adept at assimilation. social class is deeply inscribed on the body. my working-class habitus was evident in a range of both crude and subtle embodied differences. it soon became clear that i had mastered no arts of assimilation. at the freshers’ ball a public-school boy egged on by his friends came and said: ‘‘haven’t i seen you in woolworths?’’ i smiled until he went on to ask how i had managed to gatecrash the dance. he had thought i worked in woolworths. like my father before me, i staged two solitary protests in my first year at university. the first when our sociology lecturer told us coal miners keep their coal in the bath. i stood up yelled “rubbish!” then walked out. my resulting embarrassment meant i did not go back for three weeks. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 19 after coming top in my first-year examinations i ended up doing a joint honours degree in politics and economics. i was both the only female and the only student from a workingclass background on the course. i was stalked by the sociology lecturer, a married man with children. when i turned to my economics tutor for help, he suggested we spend the weekend away in his country cottage to ‘work things out’. he too was a married man with a pregnant wife. confronted with a field where i was seen to have little intellectual value, but rather an excessive physicality that was attracting unwanted attention, i resorted to a tactic that is common among high achieving young women with low self-esteem. faced with a dehumanising objectification, i tried to lose my body. habitus is the social world internalized in the body and that social world was making me sick. i became ill, first with anorexia, then bulimia, and left university with a second-class degree and a strong sense of being bruised and battered by the whole experience. this is the reference i left university with. it refers to my appearance more than my intellect and focuses on personality traits. in fact, when it does mention intelligence it refers to it as innate! i have known miss reay for 2 and a half years, nearly one year of which as her tutor, and can vouch for her impeccable character and personality. she is a very personable and agreeable girl, always sensible and extremely well presented. she is a conscientious and reliable person with a strong dose of innate intelligence and practical ability. furthermore, miss reay possesses a co-operative and sensible disposition, while her honesty and integrity are beyond question. when i read it, i felt simultaneously upset and betrayed, but i was also struck by a powerful sense of recognition. i did not challenge it because on one level i felt this man had seen the real as opposed to the fabricated me: the shop girl rather than the aspiring academic. so, i gave up on academia, an academic career, and trying to be middle class, and did not go back for twenty years. bourdieu, as many feminists have pointed out (skeggs and adkins, 2004), is not very good on gender. so far, i have spoken of the recalcitrant habitus wholly in class terms, but the academy is a field defined by male as well as upper class power: a space where racism of prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 20 intelligence is compounded by the misogyny of intelligence. but while my coal mining community had at least provided me with resources to challenge and fight the former, there were no generative dispositions to combat the latter. i tried desperately to transform my body. figure 4: last year at university 1970 although we can change our outward appearance, our classed bodily and mental dispositions are not so easy to refashion. writing about academia, bourdieu (1990a) asserts that to understand the academic field is first to understand the field with which and against which one has been formed. however, working-class men experience a very different academy to working class women, one that similarly undervalues them but rarely reduces them to sexual objects. in order to deal with the social determinations and existential contingencies that compose the self, you first need to understand them. this has been an attempt to understand the impact of class on my developing subjectivity as a child and young woman through bourdieu’s conceptual lens, and in particular, his concept of habitus. bourdieu (in bourdieu prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 21 and wacquant 1992, p. 82) acknowledges the existence of everyday forms of resistance among dominated groups, but he largely dismissed such resistance as ineffective ‘spontaneist populism’. everyday resistance, bourdieu (in bourdieu and wacquant, 1992) argues, often materialises in counter-cultural expressions that only further the marginalisation of an already marginalised group. my life has been a complex amalgam of painful, but also at times joyous, myriad adaptations, responses, reactions and resistances to the way the world is. it has been an almost constant struggle to make the world a different place. the dominated for bourdieu (in bourdieu and wacquant, 1992) are faced with two equally bad choices: cooptation or resistance-cum-further exclusion. the problem with much resistance is that it is creative, subversive and ‘going nowhere’. all those everyday acts of resistance involve a lot of energy, but ultimately reconstitute reproduction. my resistances over a period of 65 years have transformed my own life but they have made no difference at all to the status quo. we cannot transcend the effects of a field by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. there is a slim and slippery line between the resistant and the resisting habitus, and similarly between a resisting and a reproductive habitus. recalcitrance may be sedimented in your very bones but all the opposition and defiance you can muster is not sufficient on its own to change the status quo. as robbins (2006, p. 347) points out, bourdieu’s worldview turns rousseau’s contention on its head: ‘it is not that we are born free but are everywhere in chains. on the contrary, we are born in chains and constantly strive to construct the functional fiction that we are free’. that personifies us, the working classes who become socially mobile: born in chains we spend a lifetime struggling to construct the fiction that we are free. i think that is one of the most important lessons to be learnt from my life, drawing again on bourdieu’s words: ‘freedom is not given: it is something you conquer collectively’ (bourdieu 1990b, p. 15), and social mobility under neoliberal capitalism is never a collective act. it is isolating, alienating, habitus as the often-uncontrolled return of the repressed. as bourdieu (in bourdieu and wacquant 1992, p. 24) states, ‘resistance can be alienating, and submission can be liberating’. the recalcitrant habitus can have both self-defeating and transformative consequences, as i have tried to illustrate through my own experiences. the limits to change are central to the recalcitrant habitus, the refusal of others’ power is at its prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 22 heart but, as i found out all too often, that refusal is undermined by power imbalances that can be challenged but rarely transcended. for too much of my life other people’s power has worked to silence me. academic success in my fifties finally afforded me a voice that might be heard. however, the desire to be recognised and respected, combined with a enduring sense that i was not authorised to speak meant that even as a cambridge professor i frequently felt i was not entitled to my own words, my own views, that they lacked legitimation and would work to accentuate the differences between myself and others in the academic field. it is only after retirement, as i approach my seventies, that i finally feel able to begin thinking in my own words (reay, 2017). there is a terrible consequence in this silencing of those of us growing up working class. it is no longer terrible for me, but for the people i left behind, the still-working classes. i may have found a voice but no one with the power and resources to effect change is listening to it. references bourdieu, p. (1984). distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. london: routledge. bourdieu, p. (1990a). homo academicus. stanford: stanford university press. bourdieu, p. (1990b). in other words. stanford: stanford university press. bourdieu, p. (1998). practical reason stanford: stanford university press. bourdieu, p. (1999). the contradictions of inheritance. in p. bourdieu & a. accardo et al. (eds.). the weight of the world: social suffering in contemporary society (priscilla parkhurst ferguson, trans.) (pp. 507–513). stanford, ca: stanford university press. bourdieu, p. (2000). outline of a theory of practice cambridge: cambridge university press. bourdieu, p. (2007). sketch for a self-analysis cambridge: polity press. bourdieu, p. & wacquant, l. (1992). an invitation to reflexive sociology chicago, university of chicago press. reay, d. (2004). 'it's all becoming a habitus': beyond the habitual use of pierre bourdieu's concept of habitus in educational research. special issue of british journal of sociology of education on pierre bourdieu 25 (4 ), 431-444. reay, d. (2017). miseducation: inequality education and the working classes. bristol: policy press. robbins, d. (2006). on bourdieu, education and society. london: the bardwell press. skegg, b. (2004). exchange, value and affect: bourdieu and ‘the self’. sociological review 52:2, pp. 75-95. skeggs, b. and adkins, l. (2004). (eds.). feminism after bourdieu. london: wiley. 21 setting them up to fail: post-16 progression barriers of previously disengaged students copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 21-45 david allan edge hill university david.allan@edgehill.ac.uk abstract this paper looks at post-16 progression opportunities for a group of previously disaffected 14–16-year-old students who undertook vocational learning in their final two years at school in the north-west of england. the paper argues that advanced forms of vocational learning at key stage 4 are leading to over-skilling and educational limbo for many young people. questionnaire data was obtained from 109 participants in total. these included 16-21-year-olds looking to enter further education or employment with training (n=84), 14 vocational learning tutors, and 11 further education teachers. although the vocational route can lead to a nationally recognised qualification, literacy and numeracy achievements are often below the expected standard, thus creating a mismatch in identified abilities. due to the current government-enforced pressure to succeed in english and maths, a perceived ‘deficiency’ in any of these areas presents a significant barrier to progression. the students in this study are seen to be vocationally over-skilled yet underachieving in academic areas. as such, progression routes are severely limited, resulting in a high number of individuals dropping out of learning altogether. 1. introduction disengagement from secondary schools in england is becoming a growing concern for educational research (allan, 2014a; jones, 2013; newburn and shiner, 2005), while the 16-19 arena is also said to illustrate an ‘alarming rise in the levels of young people…who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system’ (maguire, 2015, p.121). arguably, school disengagement can directly impinge on both educational and social disaffection and thus eventually lead to a rise in those not in education, employment or training (neet) (simmons and thompson, 2011; stevens et al., 2014). this paper explores the post-16 educational opportunities and routes of previously disengaged young people in a small borough in the north of england, known as newtown 22 (pseudonym). the young people in this study have all previously undertaken a vocational learning programme to address their disaffection with learning in school. however, their current situation suggests that for many this is not always aligned to their previously intended destination or, indeed, the educational route that they were pursuing at the time. the programme is run by the local authority of newtown and is known as its work-based learning programme (wblp). this paper seeks to examine the young people’s perceptions of vocational learning and, in particular, the wblp’s capacity to facilitate post-16 opportunities. opportunities beyond the programme are deemed to be widely varied yet due to its logistical functioning there is often an unfortunate by-product of over-skilling, leading to many young people becoming frustrated, disaffected, and, subsequently, further disengaged and neet. it is argued, then, that preventing the re-emergence of disengagement at post-16 is a critical aspect of vocational learning programmes for 14-16-year-olds. in order to reduce neet levels, maguire (2015, p.130) recommends policy address and ‘re-engagement strategies for the hardest to reach groups.’ to go further, pre-16 education can thus be perceived as an early contributor to neet prevention, along with many other factors, such as family, peers and local employment potential (hutchinson et al., 2016). the participants in the study were asked to evaluate the wblp and to identify what contribution they believe their attendance on this programme has made to their current educational and/or employment status. 2. context 2.1 the neet label according to maguire (2015, p.121), the uk has ‘nearly a million 16–24-year-olds who are recorded as being…neet.’ although ‘neet’ refers to a post-16 typology, school participation provides a valuable contribution ‘to the making of self and society’ (mcgraw, 2011, p106). as such, pre-16 experiences play an important role in progression beyond compulsory education and, in many cases, can carry through to later life. in england, students at key stage 4 (14-16year-olds) who are not engaging in their education are often identified as, or at risk of becoming, disaffected (mckendrick, scott and sinclair, 2007), and in recent years the number of disaffected students has risen (jones, 2013). moreover, without support or intervention such disaffection can worsen after the age of 16. consequently, young people who would previously have been categorised as neet can find themselves shoehorned into ill-suited training programmes in order to meet the demands of the raising of the participation age (rpa) for compulsory education. however, while such engagement may seem a step up from neet, there are often many unfortunate consequences where young people become further marginalised from the education system. while the rpa has perhaps delayed neet status, many young people between 16 and 18 still struggle to secure a suitable educational placement, particularly where levels of literacy and numeracy do not meet the required standards. consequently, some head teachers are 23 already claiming that the mandatory resitting of english and maths gcses is impacting on motivation (espinoza, 25.08.16). for many of these young people, the neet label looms heavily on the horizon and earlier disaffection can re-emerge as they find themselves marginalised in society, particularly those already suffering the effects of societal disadvantage (pring et al., 2009). as maguire (2015, p.14) states, ‘the term neet is now commonly used to capture disengagement and social exclusion, as well as levels of unemployment, among young people.’ although the neet figures for 16-24-year-olds have reduced in recent years (department for education, 2015), statistics suggest that these levels are still way too high as they are ‘above the oecd average’ (mirza-davies, 2015, p.3). moreover, the number of disengaged young people in schools in england has risen of late and the impact of this may well be seen in neet figures of the future. 2.2 disaffection and disengagement disaffection and disengagement are often used interchangeably in the literature yet despite some overlap in the way they are conceptualised, there are arguably clear distinctions. while disaffection is a state of mind – representing a lack of connection with the environment and a level of disinterest – disengagement is an act, often undertaken with distinct agency (allan, 2014a). according to willms (2003, p.8), young people disengaged with education are, ‘students who do not feel they belong at school and have withdrawn from school activities in a significant way.’ thus, the two are often related in that disengagement is the resultant factor of disaffection, although not all individuals with disaffection will become disengaged (feng and jament, 2009). students disaffected with learning often experience social disaffection too, and this can result in confusion over identity and role. with such strong normative models in place in society and school, young people may become marginalised and subsequently view themselves as the problem. thus, the pattern may be repeated as students who do not feel they belong at school progress to feelings of not belonging in college, in employment, and in society. the sense of not belonging, then, can lead to neet, wherein individuals may break away from the norms, particularly where such norms are deemed to be irrelevant, disempowering, and even threatening. for those students who have withdrawn from school, alternative learning providers often pose a neutral environment in which to reflect on the education system and their role within it; thus facilitating a space for them to engage in greater metacognition (allan, 2015). historically, many young people who are disengaged from school have been encouraged to participate in vocational learning as an alternative educational route (thomson and russell, 2009; white and laczik, 2016). this became particularly prominent during the period of the new labour government ruling between 1997 and 2010 through strategies such as the increased flexibility programme (ifp). introduced in 2002, the ifp enabled 14-16-year-olds to attend a college or vocational learning environment in conjunction with their schooling. literacy and numeracy were addressed on such programmes but attainment varied widely. today, however, there is increasing pressure on institutions to support these skills through maths and english achievements (particularly gcses but often functional skills too), and this sometimes conflicts with the vocational learning where many tutors are ill-prepared. 24 2.3 vocational learning for re-engagement between 2004 and 2012, work-related learning was a mandatory component of schooling in england for 14-16-year-olds (dfes, 2006) and this included cv writing and job searching, although a major aspect of this was the practical elements, such as skills, that could be attained whilst undertaking relevant activities. these are often incorporated into vocational, or work-based, learning programmes; however, one of the criticisms levelled at vocational learning in recent years is that ‘it only needs to account for low levels of outcomes’ (billett, 2003, p.7), despite the fact that outputs are often based on qualifications rather than on the progression of social and cultural skills, or on ‘students’ vocational identity development’ (virtanen et al., 2014, p.44). moreover, the gcse route can be problematic for many and, as benton (2015, p.260) points out, ‘a different type of qualification may better stimulate certain groups of learners’. with a default position of gcse as the gold standard at this age, and the government drive to ensure that young people (up until the age of 19) continue to study these subjects until they achieve a grade c or above in both english and maths, other qualifications are often discredited; indeed, the academic/vocational divide continues to thrive, with vocational learning regularly perceived as inferior (chankseliani et al., 2016). however, this can be problematic as young people perform much better when they value education (fuller and macfadyen, 2012) and an alternative environment can help to re-stimulate interest in learning by encouraging reflection and metacognition (allan, 2015). in support of this, raffo (2003, p.69) suggests that alternative ways of learning, such as a vocational-related curriculum, can be effective for ‘re-motivating and re-engaging those young people classified as being ‘at risk’ or disaffected.’ as such, disengaged students are often signposted toward vocational routes. however, where academic performance is deemed to be below the expected standard, students can face barriers to progression as they seek to move beyond vocational learning, such as into employment or further education. in their study, hodgson and spours (2014, p.471) found that ‘post-16 participation was being fuelled not only by improved attainment at key stage 4 and higher aspirations across most of the cohort, but also by the inability of many middle and low attainers to access the labour market or apprenticeships.’ vocational achievement alone, then, provides an insufficient educational arsenal for progression. consequently, where literacy and numeracy ability is held in high esteem, it can become a crucial mechanism for establishing, or avoiding, neet status. although the wolf review of 2011 (wolf, 2011) resulted in an overhaul, and subsequent reduction, of the number of vocational qualifications and, in particular, their contribution to the gcse system, there is arguably still a gap where students who are not achieving academically can face educational ‘limbo’, such as poor opportunities for progression. in contrast, however, low-level vocational learning can perpetuate a social class divide, resulting in ‘an impoverished form of employability’ (simmons, 2009, p.137). the students in this study have undertaken vocational learning as part of their schooling and have then attempted to continue their study through further education. however, the expectations of many courses have resulted in these individuals being perceived as vocationally over-skilled yet academically lacking. 25 3. methodology 3.1 data collection this paper draws on questionnaire data collected through a bristol online survey (bos), wherein 109 participants responded. these included 16-21-year-olds who had undertaken the wblp in the last five years (n=84), vocational learning tutors from the private training providers (n=14), and further education teachers (n=11). the aim of the project was to collect data on the young people’s experiences of the wblp and to identify how they felt it had impacted on their current situation. the young people who completed the questionnaire could be organised into one of the following four categories: (i) currently working (ii) attending college (iii) working and studying (iv) neet. the following research questions were used to steer the initial research focus: • what education, training or employment routes do these young people pursue after undertaking the wblp? • how does the wblp prepare young people for post-16 progression routes? the questionnaire comprised both open-ended and closed responses to elicit varied data. thus, quantitative data were used to provide an overarching student perspective and qualitative data were collected to present the richness of personal experience. this paper focuses primarily on the qualitative aspect of the research. a thematic analysis of the data was conducted (see guest, macqueen and namey, 2012) on the open-ended questions and several themes were highlighted as areas of importance, as identified by the participants. while the mainstay of the research asks young people whether or not they feel that the wblp has established an appropriate route for them, the teacher and tutor responses are used to add an extra dimension to the data. the project was institutionally funded and ethical clearance was sought through the institution’s faculty ethics committee. 3.2 demographics newtown is an area that is predominantly white (95+%). it has a ratio of females to males of 1.1:1 respectively. a self-reported status indicates that the participant group comprised: 81 white, 1 asian, and 1 black, while a gender demographic illustrates: • 48 females • 36 males 3.3 about the wblp the wblp in newtown caters for around 450 disengaged 14-16-year-olds and proffers an alternative educational route to compulsory schooling. students on this programme attend from one to five days per week in an off-site environment. while many retain some connection with their school, however, others illustrate signs of negative reinforcement (allan, 2014a; hall and raffo, 2004), whereupon they use the programme as a mechanism for further dissociating themselves from school. 26 the programme draws on the vocational specialisms of 26 private training providers, offering courses in areas such as construction, motor vehicle mechanics, hair and beauty training, and sports. it is deemed by schools in the area to be successful for ‘turning around’ attitudes to learning, and evidence of improvements in attendance and attainment for many disengaged young people has previously been recorded (allan, 2014b). the provision is mostly informal – although qualifications are encouraged and, indeed, often secured – and aims to help students re-engage in learning-oriented tasks. due to the perceived flexibility, the students report that the initial lack of pressure to undertake a qualification enables them to refocus on learning and to re-evaluate their needs. the programme is also said to benefit from established links with students’ families and members of the community. students on the programme mostly worked at entry level, although some studied at higher levels. table 1 illustrates some qualifications and their equivalents within the english education system. table 1. qualification equivalents (english system) vocational level academic equivalence level 3 a-level level 2 gcse, grades a-c level 1 gcse, grades d-g entry level 3 pre-gcse entry level 2 pre-gcse entry level 1 pre-gcse (source: gov.uk, 2015) 4. findings 4.1 themes the themes that emerged from the data were formed into the following meta-themes: • barriers to progression – literacy and numeracy • over-skilling of vocational ability • disempowerment • wblp as a discard. 27 4.2 barriers to progression – literacy and numeracy out of 84 participants, 79 say that the college course of their choosing, at the appropriate level, was unavailable to them due to their low attainments in literacy and numeracy. colleges in and around newtown often required the students to undertake courses at the level that they had already achieved and, in some instances, a level below this: they wouldn’t let me do the level two bricklaying course even though i’ve got me level one and i’ve been doing level two stuff for ages (eddie). literacy and numeracy skills were deemed to be highly valuable and without suitable qualifications in these areas students were redirected to another course: it doesn’t matter how good the students are practically, they need to fulfil the criteria for the whole course. we embed maths and english so if they are not up to it they will fail (college tutor). we cannot allocate a placement on a level 1 course to a student who is working at entry level in english and maths. it would be unethical. i think this would be setting them up to fail (college tutor). however, many of the students feel that their vocational skills are of a high standard and that denying them such progression is counterproductive: i was told that i would only be able to enrol on entry three motor vehicle mechanics because my level one wasn’t recognised and because my maths wasn’t up to scratch. it’s not fair! all you do on entry level is basic stuff. i’m way past that (sally). in addition to the denial of suitability, based solely on academic achievements, staff at the college also made judgements on the professionalism of some of the provision: we have had quite a number of students from the programme who have literacy and numeracy certificates but we know from experience that they are still lacking in many areas. i think there are different level ones, depending on who assesses them (college tutor). 4.3 over-skilling of vocational ability some students were seen to be over-skilled in their vocational learning, in the sense that they struggled to progress to further education or an apprenticeship. a mismatch was identified between vocational skills and academic ability, although tutors in the providers claimed that continuing the vocational learning was as important as addressing the academic shortfall: there’s no point saying ‘just make the tea or brush the floor’ when they’ve been here for 18 months. these girls are brilliant. we have clients coming in and they’ll [clients] ask for a specific girl [student]. that’s how good they are (tutor: hair and beauty placement). the wblp tutors stressed that progress was an essential part of the students’ re-engagement programme and suggested that many of their young people were extremely capable in practical ways: 28 we have an excellent rapport with all of our students and we want the best for them. if they are capable then we encourage them (tutor: motor vehicle placement). tutors also fear that students will drop out if they are not consistently challenging them: if we just kept them [students] on the basic stuff we would lose them. we teach up to level 2 and lots of these kids are very capable of doing this level. i don’t believe in holding them back (tutor: construction placement). while this is arguably good teaching and enables the students to progress appropriately, there is an unfortunate corollary of this in that many of the students have been set up to fail. further training, and, indeed, much further education, at the appropriate level becomes unavailable until the students’ maths and english ability ‘catches up.’ 4.4 disempowerment as a result of over-skilling, and the mismatch between vocational and academic ability, students report feelings of disempowerment and frustration: because i haven’t got maths gcse, i was told i couldn’t enrol at the college unless i went back and did entry 3 mechanics. i already have level 1 in mechanics (john). in some situations, students illustrate that the barrier was too great and that an alternative career choice was called for: i’ve been working with my dad since i left because [institution name] college said i would have to do the certificate again (tyler). despite this, some students did persist with the learning route that the college suggested but found that their progression was somewhat limited: i tried the entry 3 because i was told that i needed to do english and maths but we have only done a bit anyway. the course was too easy but they wouldn’t let me change so i just dropped out (emily). 4.5 wblp as a discard from the full 84 student responses, 46 are now undertaking (or did undertake) a radically different course altogether, after dropping out of the course they claim they were coerced on to. consequently, many of these students pursued alternative career paths. ‘i gave it up and i’m on a foundation course now. i’m hoping to go into nursing’ (sarah, previous hairdressing student). whilst the wblp is rated highly by previous students (allan, 2014b), and many of these also claim it was a worthwhile experience – e.g., ‘if it wasn’t for the wblp i don’t know what would have happened to me’ (daniel) – there is a sense that the programme’s capacity to facilitate progression beyond 16 is limited, due to political expectations for academic achievements. 29 5. discussion out of all 84 participants, only 9 stated that they were undertaking an appropriate college course – i.e., one from which the wblp acted as a precursor – and that they were happy with their progress. thus, a greatly significant number of the participants have pursued an educational route that is highly unsuitable, and one in which they have been required to overcome many barriers. an arguably tragic consequence of this is that many of these students will only be able to return to learning at their previous level of achievement in literacy and numeracy. in this way, the students show that they no longer value education and this impacts negatively on their learning (fuller and macfadyen, 2012). moreover, the perceived ‘dead end’ that is reached as the students attempt to move into further education is seen to be significantly disheartening, and can result in further dissociation from school (hall and raffo, 2004). thus, 29 participants of the wblp – many of whom ‘graduated’ with level one in their specialist area (and with many industry skills that are unacknowledged by the education system) – are now officially unemployed and registered as neet. at the time of writing, various employment agencies such as connexions were attempting to negotiate a suitable pathway to return to learning. however, anecdotal evidence provided verbally by a key worker suggests that this could be problematic: ‘it’s all too little, too late. we try but they’re just not interested. and i don’t blame them after what they’ve had to put up with’ (connexions key worker). for progression, the local colleges often require the students to undertake courses at the level that they are already demonstrating and, in many instances, even lower, because the criteria for literacy and numeracy must be fulfilled. many of these are through functional skills courses, despite the fact that perceiving these as ‘stepping stone’ qualifications is highly misleading (allan, 2017). in such instances, institutions are reluctant to allow the students to participate in vocational learning above level one. moreover, even though many are resitting maths and english gcses, there are still barriers for those whose vocational skills far exceed their (labelled) academic ability. with over half of the participants moving into alternative courses – in some cases towards a new career path altogether (sarah, for instance) – the wblp, although regarded as highly effective in re-engaging disaffected young people, is merely a temporary measure of engagement as it lacks the necessary support from post-16 institutions. a key debate that emerges from this research, then, centres on disempowerment, giving rise to the question; who is setting them up to fail? from a college perspective, responsibility lies with the wblp for not developing english and maths skills but these subject areas are reputed to be key contributors of the students’ disengagement. the resultant factor, therefore, is the tragic over-skilling of vocational ability. however, students need to be stretched and challenged (coe et al., 2014) and holding them back because of lack of achievement in english and maths can, and does, encourage such young people to disengage, particularly those students who were previously marginalised by the education system and thus used the wblp to facilitate their return to learning. as the wblp tutor and provider manager argues, ‘should we restrict learning just because the standards tell us we are racing ahead?’ 30 two of maguire’s (2015, p.130) three recommendations to reduce neets are relevant for this paper: 1. policies which tackle neet prevention 2. re-engagement strategies for the hardest to reach groups arguably, the first is important because neet can often be a culmination of years of disaffection and disillusionment with education and/or society and thus pre-16 experiences play a role. the second point identifies strategies for re-engagement and from this research i would concur that this is still very much in need of development. first, such strategies aimed at the 14-16 age range are arguably key indicators of later disaffection; thus, neet is perhaps as much an issue for 14-16 recommendations as it is for 16-19 policy. therefore, greater coherence may need to be established between 14-16 and 16-19 to allow for a smoother transition for those young people who are deemed to be at risk from an early age. while this can be seen through much 14-19 discourse, pre-16 is still an arguably distinct area in itself, particularly as the rpa has a wide remit of training, education, or employment with training, and so on. as such, the common denominator is perhaps the continued study of english and maths, and the consequences of this latest policy thinking – students continuing to study these subjects until they either achieve a c or above or they reach their 19th birthday – may be borne out in a perception of further pressure and the perpetuation of disaffection. to counter this, greater links between fe and private provision may help to bridge the progression barrier, and stronger embedding of literacy and numeracy within vocational learning can ease post-16 progression, as well as challenging the lack of parity between vocational and academic learning. this research suggests, then, that although some private training providers may not have the academic capacity to support young people through gcses, they often excel in their ability to re-engage disaffected young people in some form of learning, as well as in helping them to feel more included in a learning environment. moreover, the students in this study are moving beyond expectations in relation to their vocational learning, and such a gulf between these skills and academic achievements can present many barriers. 6. conclusion for schools, disengagement is a major concern and the wblp has previously been deemed an invaluable strategy for re-engaging young people in some form of learning, although there is often a negative reinforcement of perception of schooling itself (allan, 2014a; hall and raffo, 2004). the vocational learning, undertaken on the wblp, clearly goes beyond what is expected and young people are reputed to be picking up professional skills at a high level. moreover, for today’s current ‘stretch and challenge’ discourse, this is arguably an important, and potentially effective, form of teaching. as seen, however, this generates barriers in that progression for these young people becomes highly problematic as they are engulfed in a system that heavily values academic learning over its vocational counterpart. alternative education providers can play a critical role in addressing those ‘hard to reach’ young people 31 and it is thus important to sustain interest wherever possible. however, for a smoother transition the english education system is in need of address in many ways. schooling is often unnecessarily focused on a university route and while this is useful for some, it can prove a wholly disengaging experience for others. progression for a wide number of people is potentially limited and such programmes as the wblp that help to re-engage young people and ‘turn lives around’ should be in a stronger position in which to feed into further education. in some ways, this research contributes to the debate on the lack of parity between vocational and academic learning by identifying strengths and weaknesses in each. from a widening participation perspective, however, the current emphasis on the importance of english and maths to the detriment of other subject areas is significantly failing many young people. references allan, d. 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(2003), student engagement at school: a sense of belonging and participation. results from pisa 2000. paris: oecd. wolf, a (2011) review of vocational education – the wolf report. london: department for education. 73 debating student as producer: relationships, contexts, and challenges for higher education copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 73-96 katie strudwick university of lincoln kstrudwick@lincoln.ac.uk abstract the purpose of this paper is to evaluate student as producer, as a form of curriculum development in higher education based on the practice and principles of research-engaged teaching. the paper provides an account of my experiences embedding and adopting student as producer within my own research and teaching at the university of lincoln, an institution which is recognised as being a pioneer in research-engaged teaching. my work includes, the role as guest editor for a special ‘student as producer’ edition of the journal enhancing learning in social sciences (eliss), teaching criminology in the professions, and working on funded research projects at lincoln around aspects of the undergraduate student experience, e.g. student as partners and student engagement. as well as this focus on my own teaching practice the paper sets out the theory and concepts which underpin student as producer and the way in which it has responded to current government policy, in particular the notion of student as consumer. 1. introduction 1.1 overview the purpose of this paper is to evaluate student as producer, as a form of curriculum development in higher education based on the practice and principles of research-engaged teaching. the paper provides an account of my experiences of embedding and adopting student as producer within my own research and teaching at the university of lincoln, an institution recognised as a pioneer for this approach to research-engaged teaching. my work has included performing the role as guest editor for a special ‘student as producer’ edition of the journal enhancing learning in social sciences (eliss), teaching a new module entitled criminology in the professions, and working on funded research projects at lincoln around aspects of the undergraduate student experience, such as student as partners and student 74 engagement. as well as this focus on my own teaching practice, the paper sets out the theory and concepts which underpin student as producer and the way in which it has responded to current government policy, in particular the notion of student as consumer and the marketization of higher education. 1.2 what is student as producer? student as producer emerged as a teaching and learning practice in higher education at the university of warwick in 2004, where it formed the basis of the reinvention centre for undergraduate research and a centre for excellence in teaching and learning1, before being developed at the university of lincoln from 2007. the basis of student as producer at lincoln is research-engaged teaching where students are collaborators with their university teachers in the creation and production of knowledge and meaning. student as producer is a selfconscious critique of government policy which has sought to develop the concept and practice of student as consumer (neary et al, 2014). student as producer is framed within marxist social theory and critical pedagogy, taking its name from walter benjamin’s the author as producer (1934). philosophically, the origins of student as producer are based on a critique of the principles found within the liberal humanist writings of humboldt (1810) and his model of ‘organic scholarship’, where he sought to address the imbalance between teaching and research; plus, concerns regarding the principles of academic freedom (neary and winn, 2009, p.128; neary and hagyard, 2010). by taking some of its conceptual foundations from benjamin, particularly his notion that social transformation depends on the revolution of the capitalist mode of production, this pedagogical framework has provided a critique to student as consumers through its sustained and evolving pedagogic responses to the increased marketisation of higher education. student as producer has built on benjamin’s foundational critique of capitalist production and focused on the creativity and productive relationship between student and teachers; through addressing ways for collaborative engagement not only within the university but in ways that challenge the institutional form of higher education (neary and winn, 2009, p.202; neary and saunders, 2016). the student as producer project was funded at lincoln by the higher education academy (hea) in 2010 as student as producer: research-engaged teaching, an institutional strategy. since 201013 student as producer has been institutionally embedded as a teaching and learning development project to ‘re-engineer the relationship between research and teaching’2. it was designed as an ‘institutional framework’, a conceptual model, to embrace student engagement with academics in teaching, learning and research. its working definition of research-engaged teaching and learning was identified as: a fundamental principle of curriculum design whereby students learn primarily by engagement in real research projects, or projects which replicate the process of 1 for the reinvention centre for undergraduate research and a centre for excellence in teaching and learning, see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/cetl 2 for more information, see http://www.studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/cetl http://www.studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/ 75 research in their discipline. engagement is created through active collaboration amongst and between students and academics (neary et al., 2014, p.9). since this project there has been a sustained progression of student as producer as an overriding pedagogic paradigm within academic practices across disciplines (neary et al., 2014). through embedding students in higher education, not as recipients or consumers, or customers, but as collaborators, student as producer embraces the importance of ensuring meaningful participation between academics and students. students are seen on an “equal footing”, broadening their learning experiences through opportunities to be participants in research activity as well as teaching and learning projects. such reshaping effectively demonstrates to students the benefits of skills, knowledge, and engagement within a culture of partnerships in teaching and learning. student as producer at the university of lincoln is based on eight key principles that were developed in consultation with academics, professional support staff and students at the start of the hea funded project. they shape the learning experience by: • encouraging research as a form of discovery, characterised by a problem based, enquiry based or research based approach to learning; • technology in teaching, changing the relationship between tutor and student through digital scholarship from on-line technologies; • space and spatiality, use of spaces in teaching; • assessment, as part of the discovery and research engaged teaching approach; • research and evaluations, use of research engaged teaching in student learning and teaching; • student voice, citizen engagement within student voice to provide responsibility for learning; • support for research based teaching through expert engagement with information resources, engaging the library service to support individual programmes; • creating for the future, using employability, enterprise, and postgraduate study to support career preparation and aspirations of students (neary et al., 2014). the impact of student as producer has had far reaching pedagogic dissemination and this impact, both nationally and globally such as newcastle university, university of liverpool, university of hull, vanderbilt university in the usa and the university of british columbia in canada; meets with wider objectives of student as producer for restating ‘the meaning and purpose of higher education by reconnecting the core activities of universities i.e. research and teaching’3. 1.3 policy context the emerging trend towards an explicit consumerist ethos for teaching and learning has sought to reshape the higher education sector as a whole. it has resulted in a system where: 3 for more information, see http://www.studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk http://www.studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/ 76 marketisation is a reality in united kingdom universities but often ‘... it sits uneasily with the values of many academics, who came into higher education with a nobler motivation’ (lomas, 2007, p.32; green, 2004, p.14). scott (2013, p.32) observes that higher education has been ‘drowning’ in policy developments linking innovation, industry, enterprise, with intrusions into management and accountability of policy delivery. woodhall et al. (2014, p.3) consider the restructuring that has led to the ‘insidious incursion of the customer concept’; a framework first introduced by the dearing report (1998) and intensified by the independent review of higher education funding and student finance, chaired by lord browne, (2010). a process where the browne report claimed to have ‘discovered a consensus on the need for reform’ (bis, 2010, p.24). the proposals for reform were not positively received within some higher education communities. through comparing responses to dearing and browne, scott (2013, p.41) refers to more acceptance of the former with the latter receiving ‘widespread antagonism’ for its offer of ‘more superficial – and perhaps token – engagement’. further critiques were put forward by jameson et al. (2012a, p.11) with their acknowledgment of a ‘rhetoric of choice’: browne’s justification for high tuition fees is being couched in terms of the economic good of having a degree and that students are given the ultimate choice in purchasing a stake in their own economic wellbeing. browne’s recommendations and proposals subsequently ensured that the greater commodification of higher education was proposed but at the same time engendered a critical response from within the higher education teaching and learning community. following this review, another government report higher education: students at the heart of the system (bis, 2011) set out the case for ‘greater competition’ in the modernisation of higher education by introducing much higher levels of fees.
changes occurring under these reforms further confirmed the shifts towards marketization. placing students ‘at the heart of the system’ in the title resulted in an ideological framing of students as customers or consumers within a ‘business like’ model of higher education. it has been claimed that the post 2010 reforms symbolize a ‘watershed’ moment representing, ‘a fundamental ideological shift: competition is now entrenched as the major dynamic for improvement and more active (and informed) student choice is the instrument of securing it’ (scott, 2013, p.52). the increased fees led to debates about the (perceived) level of instrumentalism occurring, with students ‘paying’ for their degree. there was a notable shift in governments’ expectations, resulting from policies and reforms focusing on reshaping higher education towards measuring teaching standards and quality. there have been more recent centralised policy calls for higher education to become more accountable, as shown in the green paper fulfilling our potential: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice (bis, 2015). core elements of this paper have been widely debated within higher education, with its ‘vision’ for higher education for the future. most pertinent to this discussion, it proposed the creation of a teaching excellence framework (tef) with differential tuition fees as one aspect of its ‘vision’. basing teaching quality on a measurable metrics system, with accountability on 77 an institutional and programme level, explicitly links excellence with higher fees, to be measured by the tef. debates have succeeded in raising considerable questions, and uncertainty, about such proposals. academic debates have acknowledged the myriad of complications and complexities with measuring standards among institutions, at a discipline and subject level [see hepi responses 2015; 2016; wonke; ashwin, 2016]. in contrast, there were more contented responses to the recognition of the importance of teaching in universities, shown by placing the status of teaching alongside those of research [see peck, 2017; unialliance; higher education academy]. these divergences in opinions and responses within higher education highlight the continued confusion and questioning about plans for its future. such overarching concerns were exacerbated by the publication of the white paper in may 2016, success as a knowledge economy: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice. this paper proposed plans for government monitoring through assessment of the quality of teaching. by focusing on creating a competitive market of higher education, such proposals led to a revised/intensified marketisation system. through the continued use of “business” language, the paper stated the proposal will be keeping students at the centre of higher education, reinforcing their role as “consumers” by: …introducing more competition and informed choice into higher education, we will deliver better outcomes and value for students, employers and the taxpayers who underwrite the system (bis, 2016a, p.8). there is no doubt that the 2016 white paper represents a ‘defining moment’ in the future of higher education (jamdar, 2016). it contains explicit references and links to previous policies, placing emphasis on the role of students, whether that be as customer or consumer, with their satisfaction confirmed as a core part of the measurements; as exemplified by the 2017 national student survey question amendments. the proposals in the white paper addressed ‘values’ and measures on a number of levels through the relationships between research and teaching; the place of teaching in institutions; the introduction of metrics as a valid measure; value for money and resource implications and widening participation. these values are discussed by woodhall et al. (2014) in their critical evaluation of consumer issues in the context of higher education. in addressing student experiences and values, the authors note the variation and ‘conceptual conflict’ apparent in higher education. their framework indicates five different ways of conceptualising customer values attributes; outcomes; value for money; net value and cheapest option stating: if students do occasionally demonstrate customer-like behaviour; and if – as they manifestly do university managements construe them collectively as a source of revenue; then ‘customer’ becomes a legitimate frame of reference and analysis – and value, then, becomes an issue of shared concern (woodhall et al, 2014, p.6). in the continued move towards consumer concepts within higher education, the commonalities and noted complexities of impacts within reforms continue to be raised. academic and policy debates inform current trends through the widespread dissemination of supporting literature, blogs, opinion pieces, critiques, and informed discussion (see wonkhe; 78 hea). watson (2013, p.204) provides some conclusions for meeting the challenges raised by government higher education policy with a thought provoking note for reflection: survival and prosperity will once again only securely be achieved – as it has been in the past – by understanding and adapting in a framework of enduring principles. in the next section i will discuss my own work in relation to student as producer and elsewhere. this work is written up as seven case studies based on specific projects which are illustrative of the impact of student as producer to research and teaching developments within the curriculum at lincoln. 2. case studies 2.1 case studies from student as producer (i) ‘criminology in the professions’ (2010). this project was funded by the centre for sociology, anthropology and politics (c-sap) the former subject centre at the hea. it is a platform for enhancing student as producer at the university through the curriculum. it has resulted in a module that has been externally recognised for ‘best practice’ by learned societies such as the british society of criminology, as part of the programme award for teaching excellence in 2013. it has been a core employability module at level five at the university of lincoln since 2010, as it is designed to bridge the gaps between academic knowledge and theory and professional practice and employability skills. teaching and learning on this module embraces partnerships and collaboration with joint practitioner and academic lectures. employability considerations are focused through career workshops, alumni evenings and peer reflections; with links provided by institutional services for volunteering and careers and guidance. it is supported by the lincoln award provided for students at the university that acts as an employability framework to support, enhance and recognise their extra-curricular activity. through formally assessing student engagement, participation and attendance the module has been the forerunner for embedding employability within the curriculum and continues to have an impact in curriculum terms. this demonstration of effective practical implementation of student as producer continues to develop with new emerging opportunities for student volunteering (jameson et al., 2010). (ii) subject interest group case study and dvd (2010)4. the production of a dvd as part of the project ensures that criminology in the professions (cip) has created a learning resource that implants student as producer into the curriculum, and beyond. it was produced by the school of social sciences at the university of lincoln and working pictures ltd, with funding from c-sap to present thoughts of undergraduate criminology students. it explores student reflections on how employability skills may be developed through their studies, including reflections from alumni whose comments are informed by their subsequent graduate employment; input was also provided by academic and careers practitioners from the university of lincoln. 4 the video can be accessed at: http://criminologyintheprofessions.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/life-after-criminology http://criminologyintheprofessions.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/life-after-criminology 79 (iii) student reflections of cip: one year on (2011). by collaboratively integrating the student as producer ethos into practice, this follow up evaluation enabled students to inform the development of cip’s module delivery and curriculum design for future cohorts, thus evidencing their role as the co-producers of research and knowledge. a mixed methodology approach was employed for this project, including semi structured questionnaires for recent graduates to find out information about their employment history, how they now rated their criminology degree and whether they felt it prepared them well for employment. two further surveys were completed by students currently studying cip. a semi structured survey was also used with employers and two focus groups were conducted with final year criminology students who had taken part in a paid work experience placement with the benefit fraud agency and staff from the careers service. the final method was a world café exercise with academic staff from the school of social sciences (jameson et al., 2011). (iv) evaluation of the impact of student mentoring within a social sciences research methodology module (2012). this project was funded by the fund for educational development (fed) a funding mechanism provided by the university to support and develop the research-engaged teaching agenda of student as producer. fed was accompanied by the undergraduate research opportunities scheme (uros) that offered bursaries of up to £1000 to support collaborative working between staff and undergraduate students on research projects. this financial support was available for projects which could be either part of larger research or for one-off small scale projects, on condition they are committed by an undergraduate student working under the supervision of a member of academic staff. the impact of uros on students was apparent in their collaborative work with academics where ‘a shift in their role as a student’ was reported (neary et al., 2014, p.22). the student as producer project established further grants with fed that focused on small scale evaluation projects relating to teaching and learning with funding available of up to £1500. these projects contributed to the implementation of students as producer as well as other curriculum developments, such as curriculum design. the pedagogic value of such funding offered academics the opportunity to create pilot projects, or small scale research, evaluating aspects of teaching and learning or reflective practice. projects that have been funded include: student-engaged subject committee meetings; using the artist in residence model as a framework for module delivery; what factors enable or hinder students’ research engaged learning in practice learning opportunity 1; the school of psychology student conference and my own project, the evaluation of the impact of student mentoring within a social sciences research methodology module. this evaluation assessed the impact of peer mentoring for learners in their first year of study through students’ analysis of a student interactive blog, focus groups and a world café exercise. the role of students as co-researchers (named as ‘evaluators’ in this project) facilitated focus groups run on a cohort basis with level four and five students. further co production roles and principles were demonstrated by gaining levels of understanding and knowledge through a world café. findings indicated that mentoring from second years for first-year students, effectively connects research with teaching. the skills of student mentors, working in collaboration with tutors, enabled a greater appreciation of teaching methods, 80 developed a better awareness of their own knowledge, and increased confidence for first year students. evaluations of peer mentoring demonstrated the impact second-year mentors had as co-producers in offering support and guidance for first years on the core research methods module. mentors demonstrated skills of confidence, communication and leadership in their role for demonstrating knowledge (strudwick & jameson, 2012a). (v) the embedding oer project (2012)5. this was funded through the hea change academy and demonstrated a commitment to the student as producer ethos by concentrating on integrating open educational resources (oers) into academic teaching and learning practice. student as producer principles were integral to the production of an oer for the module ‘criminology in the professions’. the project established the student’s intellectual development, as a co-producer, rather than merely a consumer of knowledge, by releasing knowledge into the public domain. the resource was produced under an open licence, developing the use of technology as an ‘enabler’ in a resource learning process (strudwick and jameson 2012b). (vi) evaluating the dichotomies of student engagement: “understanding the gaps” (2016). the work of crawford et al (2015, p.14) considers the similarities between principles of student as producer, student engagement and partnerships. the student engagement partnership (tsep) is a relationship between the national union of students and the higher education sector and provides further discourses on the variation and dimensions of student engagement, with reference to the hea and student as producer6. healey et al. (2014) address student as partners as one form of student as producer as a means to critically address challenges being presented in higher education. my project sought to develop these insights by researching levels of student interest and participation, within student engagement in social sciences. students were integral to the evaluation, taking the role as both participants (in interviews and focus groups) and also as researchers/facilitators in conducting the research. again, this project demonstrates the commitment towards student as producer, substantiating the impact this form of collaborative culture can have on the student experiences. summaries of findings indicated positive opinions on the opportunities offered by the student engagement outside of the curriculum, under the student as producer agenda. core issues for students included the expansion of skills, increasing employability and enhancement of softer skills. the importance of the student voice was further highlighted as of great significance by the students who were actively engaged with these opportunities. some barriers were identified that impeded engagement, with students noting time constraints and a lack of awareness about the opportunities. academic colleagues identified the importance of extracurricular support offered by the student as producer ethos, such as partnerships, collaboration, and participation. one notable feature reported by academics was a lack of clarity about what encompasses student engagement and a possible need to manage expectations of both students and academics. 5 resources, media links, guidance on reflexive practice and alumni video podcasts at: http://criminologyintheprofessions.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk 6 for more information, see http://tsep.org.uk http://criminologyintheprofessions.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/ http://tsep.org.uk/ 81 (vii) a special edition of the journal ‘enhancing learning in social sciences’ (2012)7. the final case study demonstrating the successful implementation and impact of student as producer within and beyond the university, is provided by the hea’s publication of this journal commonly known as eliss. in this special edition, academic papers debated and discussed pedagogic practices implemented through research and projects under student as producer collaborations. six papers from staff at the university of lincoln and eight external to the institution were published; these were accompanied by four other papers on undergraduate reflections of this approach to teaching and learning. the edition presented differential approaches to teaching and learning through case studies, innovative teaching practices and the reflections from students’ experiences. its papers indicated the impact student as producer has had on teaching practice. 2.2 meeting the challenges in higher education reforms? the case studies above indicate some of the successful implementation of student as producer at lincoln. institutional support and ‘buy in’ has been a core element of the progression of student as producer and its student engagement (neary et al., 2014). the embedding of the approach at an institutional level has demonstrably advanced student involvement and participation in both the sense of academic community and the culture of undergraduate teaching and learning. it can be said to have registered ‘…the movement away from a passive consumer, consuming knowledge…to the student as active producer of themselves as enterprising citizens’ (jameson et al., 2012a, p.11). as a beneficiary of the implementation of this pedagogic framework and its principles at an institutional level, my role as an academic has been enabled to shape student engagement in a collaborative way. conducting student as producer projects has facilitated dissemination of good practice and sharing of case studies that cross disciplinary boundaries and those of the institution itself. there can be no doubt that higher education in the uk has been reshaped and reformed with recent government proposals (scott, 2013). there has been a change in the relationships of students with academics and within higher education more widely, especially with the notion of consumer ‘choice’ (jameson et al., 2012b). student engagement (encompassing student voice, student gain and student satisfaction) now has a central place in measuring, and in “confirming” quality and standards in teaching and learning in higher education in the uk. the most recent reform has concerned the government’s proposals set out in the white paper (2016) ‘success as a knowledge economy: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice’. it has been claimed the bill will provide universities with reputational and financial inducements for raising teaching standards and for helping students from all backgrounds into employment or further study (bis, 2016b). it received its royal assent in april 2017 thereby elevating its proposals into law through the higher education and research act 2017. the argument remains for higher education policy to have effective consultation but in terms of how we can meet such demands, we need to be well informed of planned changes, and indeed to be aware of their consequences and implications for us on a wider level in higher education. one response to the myriad of debates that are occurring pedagogically is to 7 student voices and academic reflections can be accessed at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rhep16/4/3?nav=toclist http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rhep16/4/3?nav=toclist 82 ensure that as academics we evidence ‘what we do well’ and emphasise innovation and good practice in teaching and learning projects like student as producer. this dissemination should be both internal and external to the institution to demonstrate values in the student voice and the extent of student engagement in its many forms. 3. conclusion this paper has reflected my ‘journey’ of working with the concept of student as producer as a framework to meet challenges in higher education. i have done this by providing a range of case studies that allow for a complex understanding and interpretation, plus the commonalities and differences that co-exist within the student as producer model. student as producer can be applied as a challenge to the concept of student as consumers and the wider policy trends towards marketization that remain an on-going concern within higher education. the proposed reshaping of teaching quality and standards in higher education places student engagement and student voice as an imperative element in this process, but this is an issue which needs further research. the relationship between student as producer and student engagement enables an exploration of the reshaping of core elements of engagement and participation. interestingly, carey’s work (2013) identifies the ‘…scant evidence that students’ choices are based on traditional consumer principles.’ (p.251). this is a valuable source of reflection to “keep in mind” when designing, planning and implementing student engagement opportunities under student as producer. student as producer has changed the relationships between students and academics by embracing core values of collaboration. through the development of students as active participants, relationships between research and teaching are progressed. opportunities for student engagement, student as partners and student as researchers, under student as producer, enhances the value of the student voice. student as producer, as a conceptual framework, can be continually reframed and revisited through its culture of teaching and learning. references ashwin, p. 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(2012b) enhancing applying research within criminology: british criminology society award to further open educational resources. https://bscltn.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/massivelyopen-online-criminology-the-new-mooc-three-projects-for-enhancing-learning-and-widening-access unialliance (2016) ‘breaking down the ‘divide’ between research and teaching’ available at: http://www.unialliance.ac.uk/rit_pr accessed: 9 january 2017 watson, d. (2013). leading the british university today: your fate in whose hands. in c. callender & p. scott (eds.), browne and beyond modernizing english higher education, london: institute of education, pp. 194-205. wonkhe http://wonkhe.com woodhall, t., hiller, a. and resnick, s. (2014) “making sense of higher education: students as consumers and the value of the university experience”, studies in higher education, 39(1), pp. 48-67. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ http://studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/funding https://bscltn.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/massively-open-online-criminology-the-new-mooc-three-projects-for-enhancing-learning-and-widening-access https://bscltn.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/massively-open-online-criminology-the-new-mooc-three-projects-for-enhancing-learning-and-widening-access http://www.unialliance.ac.uk/rit_pr http://wonkhe.com/ 200 review: complexity in education: from horror to passion copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 200-204 jacqueline dodding university centre at blackburn college jacqueline.dodding@blackburn.ac.uk bakker, c. & montesano montessori, n. (eds.) (2016). complexity in education: from horror to passion. rotterdam: sense publishers. pp.312. complexity in education: from horror to passion, edited by cok bakker and nicolina montesano montessori, is a compilation of four years’ work by research groups from the faculty of humanities at utrecht university and the faculty of education at hu utrecht university of applied sciences. the central theme explored in the text is that of ‘normative professionalisation’. the book presents perspectives on professionalism, ethics, virtue and morality drawing on the work of hannah arendt, gert biesta, harry kuneman, donald schön and chris argyris. this volume seeks to build evidence for attending to the complexities present in education and educational situations which, in turn, it is suggested, support the education and professional development of teachers, thereby improving society and democracy. this work contains an extensive array of research on worldview education, disclosure on citizenship, co-teaching, teacher education, moral authorship, traditional reform perspectives in education, the dialogue on citizenship, and the link between education and religion. it is suggested that this text might be useful for researchers and educators interested in the subject of ‘normative professionalisation’, qualitative researchers, researchers involved in practice-based research, and teachers and managers in primary, secondary, and professional education. it is also proposed that the book could be of interest to members of the public who may be concerned with how education may influence the development of a secure and sustainable society. the initial introduction to the book is provided by bakker and he begins with an exploration of key terms used in the book such as instrumental and normative professionality, which is useful for those readers who are unfamiliar with such terms. whilst the introduction sets the scene for the book, it does seem to be rather lengthy but, nevertheless, it provokes interest as it highlights how the teacher is required to know and understand the ‘system’ (p.13) that 201 is in place in education. this needs to be achieved to work within its constraints and to become an instrumental professional thus, in the system’s eyes, providing a good education. he further problematises what a ‘good education’ is considered to be and then identifies six developments in education that are taking place at the moment. these are established from a synthesis of the research that has been undertaken by both research groups. the second introduction produced by both bakker and montessori provides an introduction to the research projects discussed within the book. it highlights that educational research is indeed complex, as many those involved in research are also practitioners and, therefore, there is a hermeneutic element to this type of research. all the contributors to the book have had to demonstrate the theory and methodology they have worked with during their projects. there is the suggestion that the inclusion of multiple theories and methodologies adds to the depth of the problem of complexity presented within this text since it demonstrates the multiple ways in which educational settings are researched. this further provokes interest as the notion of complexity in education is deepened. the second introduction is again quite lengthy, and it does seem to take a long time to arrive at what might be considered the most important sections of the book, namely the research underpinning it. that being said, the inclusion of both of these introductions is necessary for those unfamiliar with educational contexts and research. for those who are more familiar with the concepts, both introductions serve as a reminder of the complexity in education where teachers and educationalists are expected to conform to the norms inherent in their profession in terms of the instrumental professionalisation, whilst often subscribing to the complexities involved in normative professionalisation. the introductions also provide signposting to the rest of the book, as it seems that the title of the book, not only belies what is discussed, but is also the layout of this volume. the core chapters of the book present the research reports from members of both groups, during which the question ‘how can we develop a grip on the notion of complexity in education?’ (p.54) is addressed. chapters one and two report on the philosophies of hannah arendt and virtuosic citizenship respectively; case studies are presented during chapter five to chapter nine. chapter ten explores the development of a new teacher-training course at a teaching college, whereas chapter eleven explores the origins of dalton education in the netherlands, evaluating this and its relationship with the dutch government. part three of the text focusses on why complexity in education matters. the first chapter of part three is written by montessori and considers the concepts of plurality and complexity focusing on the social and educational relationships, applying discourse theory. this chapter does not present any further new research but reflects on the research already situated in part two via the ‘lens of results’ (p. 259) focusing on normative professionalisation discussed earlier in the book. throughout this chapter, montesano montessori discusses how the research presented in part two has led to understandings about worldviews and helped with analysis of how current society and the educational system are interlinked. one of her main observations is how contradictory the eu discourse is regarding lifelong learning for which, through her reflections on the research presented earlier in the book, she proposes some solutions. 202 the final chapter of the book presents the reflections of both editors on research in part two. they ponder on how the research within the book contributes to further understanding of complexity in education. the conclusion the editors come to is that if complexity in the educational and research fields is acknowledged and to some extent embraced, educational and social processes become all the more enhanced. however, this is balanced with a nod to the fact that instrumental professionalisation needs to be accepted to some degree in education. identifying instances which matter and paying attention to those, thereby stepping away from instrumental professionalisation and embracing the complexity of education, is often of great value in educational situations. this book is a valuable addition to the literature surrounding educational processes. by presenting current research in the field, it explores the complexity of educational processes connecting these to how society and education are related. the text is complex in its layout, but there is adequate signposting throughout enabling the reader to meander through, absorbing the interesting concepts it presents. 195 review: an adventure in statistics: the reality enigma copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 195-199 val todd university centre at blackburn college valerie.todd@blackburn.ac.uk field, a. and iles, j. (2016). an adventure in statistics: the reality enigma. london: sage edge. pp.768. having relied upon field’s award winning book discovering statistics using ibm spss statistics (4th edition) as a research methods key text for some years, i was excited to find that he had written a new quantitative research methods text in the form of a fictional novel. with an adventure in statistics: the reality enigma, field has created a quantitative research methods text book aimed at undergraduate students with limited knowledge of mathematics and who would prefer to avoid the subject, but who are required to use statistics for research projects. anxiety about statistics is reported by up to 80% of undergraduates in the social and behavioural sciences (williams, 2010) and this can lead to fear of engaging with quantitative research methods. to overcome this anxiety, the premise of the book is to wrap the statistical procedures in a futuristic action novel based around the central character, musician zachary slade, a non-mathematician who reluctantly gets involved with the research process in a bid to find his missing girlfriend alice. the story is devised as the motivator for reading the book, with the statistical content being picked up on the way, and to this end, the book is designed to be read from cover to cover like a traditional novel. novice statisticians can relate to the central character, who also has little mathematical understanding at the beginning of the saga and therefore requires concepts to be explained in simple terms. each chapter begins with zach embarking on the next step of his journey, which provides the context for the statistical procedures covered in the chapter, and ends with a glossary of key terms and puzzles to apply the learning. the book is thorough in its approach and systematically builds mathematical understanding throughout and learning is well supported by a plethora of online materials for both lecturers and students. the book achieves its primary goal of providing a consistent narrative as a context for understanding abstract mathematical concepts, thus making the fundamental statistical 196 content more accessible for the intended audience. moreover, because the author assumes no prior knowledge of statistics and explains all mathematical principles and notation in simplistic terms, it is well suited to students from arts based disciplines who may have low mathematical self-efficacy. the quirky approach to the storytelling, involving many statistical principles being explained by a character called professor milton grey (a cat), the use of humour, and the regular inclusion of short comic strips, allows the reader to meander through the statistical concepts on the wave of the story to develop mathematical understanding without being paralysed by fear. the book is comprehensive in its approach and systematically covers topics from the fundamental assumptions of the research process and understanding research journal articles, through to a range of descriptive and inferential statistics as far as factorial designs. it is therefore a resource that can be used throughout an undergraduate degree programme and as far as some postgraduate study. from a teaching and learning perspective, the book is thorough and fosters a deep approach to learning by developing a conceptual understanding of the statistics used because readers are required to work out the statistical procedures using a calculator, rather than simply following a few steps on a statistical computer package that will provide the correct answer, but no understanding of what the answer means. the book is also a good resource for applying and reinforcing understanding because after each small step, learners are invited to ‘check your brain’ with a small task to apply the learning before moving on to the next step, and this is reinforced at the end of each chapter with a series of larger tasks where the skills learned are combined. there are also a range of online resources including multiple choice tests, which can be used to consolidate learning and to promote independent learning. although the novel is engaging and the statistical content is set at an appropriate level, at 17 chapters long it could be overwhelming for students who already have an aversion to quantitative research methods, particularly if the book was being used independently. in some ways the book has been too ambitious, with the attempt to be thorough making the content too broad, and it would possibly work better as a series of short books. if the book was used as a key text for a research methods module, it would need to be a yearlong module to cover all of the chapters. the book could however, be used in the same way as a traditional research methods text with readers dipping in and out of each statistical concept and reading the chapters independently of each other, but this would detract from the premise of the book and render the fictional story aspect redundant. the book refers to the standard statistical computer packages r and spss, and explains output tables. however, there is no detailed guidance on how to use the statistical packages, and in the real world, these computer packages would be used instead of a calculator, so more savvy students would possibly struggle to see the point of learning how to calculate the statistics by hand when they are also expected to learn how to operate the computer packages. this is also an area where an attempt at thoroughness may lead to redundancy or confusion, as students are likely to be using either r or spss, but not both. 197 i thoroughly enjoyed reading an adventure in statistics: the reality enigma and i would recommend it for students who genuinely wanted to understand the research process and develop their own skills, and who were prepared to invest the time in reading the book. the book may be less appropriate for the time-poor student who just wants to pass the module and get it out of the way without really getting to grips with the statistics. the bold premise of this book is sound and the fictional narrative distinguishes it from the traditional dry quantitative research methods texts, and if the story can motivate reluctant or fearful students to engage with the subject, this has to be a clear strength of the book. as with many things in life, what you will get from this book will depend largely on what you are prepared to invest. references field, a. (2013). discovering statistics using ibm spss statistics, 4th edition. london: sage publications ltd. williams, a.s. (2010). statistics anxiety and instructor immediacy. journal of statistics education, 18(2), pp. 1-18. prism journal https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401219 prism (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401219 1 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 hard graft: collaborative exploration of working-class stories in shaping female educator identities emma gillaspy,1 fiona routh,2 amy edwards-smith,3 samantha pywell,4 alison luckett,5 sheena cottam6 and sabina gerrard7 1 faculty of health and care, university of central lancashire, uk (egillaspy@uclan.ac.uk) 2 school of social work, care and community, university of central lancashire, uk (frouth1@uclan.ac.uk) 3 school of community health & midwifery, university of central lancashire, uk (aedwards-smith1@uclan.ac.uk) 4 school of sport & health sciences, university of central lancashire, uk spywell2@uclan.ac.uk 5 school of nursing, university of central lancashire, uk (aluckett1@uclan.ac.uk) 6 school of nursing, university of central lancashire, uk (scottam3@uclan.ac.uk) 7 school of nursing, university of central lancashire, uk (sgerrard1@uclan.ac.uk) received: 10/02/2020 accepted for publication: 17/02/2022 published: 22/06/2022 abstract this empirical qualitative study investigates the ways in which working-class roots have shaped educator values and identity. using collaborative autoethnography, we share an honest insight into the stories of seven female educators drawn together from a variety of health and social care disciplines. the five themes emerging from this research: connection through differences and commonalities; graft; inner tensions; authenticity ‘i am who i am’ and the bigger picture are tightly interconnected, generating a complex and rich picture of contemporary female educator identity. this supportive and collaborative approach has been transformational in the realisation we are not alone, and it has provided a space to celebrate our ‘otherness’. as a result, we have embraced our collective responsibility to challenge inequalities and foster a more open, accessible and authentic he future for all. keywords: working class; collaborative autoethnography; female; higher education 1. introduction drawn together from a variety of health and social care disciplines, this study shares the stories of seven female educators at a united kingdom (uk) post-1992 university with a strong focus on widening participation. using collaborative autoethnography, we explore our values as educators and how they have been influenced by our unique working-class upbringings. through an iterative cycle of collaborative dialogue and individual reflection, we discovered how our experiences have shaped our educational practices. although identity is defined as ‘the fact of being who or what a person or thing is’ https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401218 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401218 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:egillaspy@uclan.ac.uk mailto:frouth1@uclan.ac.uk mailto:aedwards-smith1@uclan.ac.uk mailto:spywell2@uclan.ac.uk mailto:aluckett1@uclan.ac.uk mailto:scottam3@uclan.ac.uk mailto:sgerrard1@uclan.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-3331 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4646-4276 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0071-0048 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4243-1306 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3809-8643 prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 2 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 (wwww.lexico.com), educator identities can be shaped through a variety of experiences. whilst an overarching female educator identity has yet to be defined clearly in the literature, crew (2020) references the significant impact of challenges within the female educator journey which originate from working-class experiences. this study aims to bring together critical reflections on a range of female educators’ journeys and seeks to add to the body of knowledge around this little-researched topic. finding each other the reasons that brought us together as a project team speak to the wider need for diversifying the norms of the academy (black, 2005; craddock et al., 2018; reay, 1997). one of the team shared a call for collaborators on a cross-faculty online message board seeking colleagues to explore the topic of working-class academic identity. as we each read the details of the call, we felt a visceral connection to the topic and an innate sense of responsibility to provide a platform for this underrepresented voice in academia (wilson et al., 2020). we each wanted to uncover the impact of our working-class backgrounds on our day-to-day teaching in higher education (he). we were also drawn towards the collaborative nature of the project, looking to gain confidence in academic research through peer support (lee & boud, 2003). although the single gender representation in the collaboration was unintentional, the findings of this study will understandably focus on the experiences of contemporary female workingclass academics. the female working class academic modern society has led us to a stage in history where people have more freedom than ever before to break from pre-established traditions and social positions. however, broecke and hamed (2008) argue that despite this new-found freedom, our identities will never be able to escape the constraints of the way others perceive us. when exploring bourdieu’s gendered and gendering habitus concept, robinson and richardson (2015) attribute many culturally acceptable concepts of subordination in terms of women as academics, such as the burden of women’s domestic responsibilities, perceived gendered work roles and gender stereotypes within the uk education system. in line with this, okin (1994) discusses liberal feminism and how women’s aspirations are often defeated by gender stereotypes and discrimination, claiming the ways in which girls and boys are raised channels women and men into different and unequal reinforced social roles. these unequal social roles then transpire into the title of ‘academic’ where working-class female academics take up a higher level of emotional labour, caring for students in order to help them feel valued and foster a sense of belonging within the rigidity of academia. rickett and morris (2020) acknowledge the social segregation that working-class females face in terms of their perceived skill set, stating that this results in ongoing social segregation in the academic workforce with women automatically positioning themselves as inferior to their male counterparts. this is partly due to a shift from the ‘heavy capitalism’ seen in the industrial revolution and beyond to a new ‘light capitalism’ brought about by global connectivity (breeze, 2018). today’s academics must therefore have a strong identity and sense of self to deliver the socially constructed expectations of the role but then also be flexible enough to quickly adapt to changes in a complex fluid he landscape (wong & chiu, 2020). this contradiction of solid yet flexible self-made identities serve to add further conflict to a deep-rooted working-class ethic of https://www.lexico.com/definition/identity prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 3 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 the self as a set identity. the neoliberal approach to he has meant a move away from traditional core values of professional freedom and autonomy to one of competitiveness and cost efficiency, skills traditionally perceived as androcentric (robinson & richardson, 2015). common learning and teaching language such as ‘andragogy’ (knowles, 1968), meaning ‘manleading’, further evidences the deep roots within he of male dominance. this has resulted in working-class female academics having to work in an institution that is arguably classist and sexist. even if as working-class females we respond to the new demands of the role of an academic by trying to assimilate to the opposite of who we were socially constructed to be, we can never escape the way others see us, resulting in working-class females suffering from imposter syndrome and feeling devalued and unaccounted for (wilkinson, 2020). this study subjectively and collectively explores what it means to be a contemporary female working-class academic through the lens of educational practice. whilst this collaboration offers a voice to females working in academia, the focus of this paper is not one of feminist epistemology but rather one of academic identity. using our stories as ‘windows to the world’ (chang et al., 2013, p. 18) we investigate the concept of self as academic in a neoliberal context and celebrate the freedom that comes with honest and open conversations about the way academia must change if there is to be true equality in the future. 2. method we employed the qualitative approach of collaborative autoethnography (cae) to examine the team’s educational values and practices within our sociocultural context as working-class female academics. cae emerged from the study of self (autoethnography) but with the addition of collective and cooperative dialogue (chang et al., 2013). themes emerging from cae data are potentially more widely representative as they have resulted from collective subjectivity of multiple perspectives (lapadat, 2017). as we discussed possible methods to explore our chosen topic, cae particularly resonated with the project team as it combines individual and group work aligning with our values of equal collaboration and peer support. context and sample we are a group of seven female lecturers aged between 36 and 50 working at the university of central lancashire, a post-1992 uk university. we are at various stages of our academic careers, having taken different routes into our roles, and teach across several disciplines in health and social care subjects. we all identify as having working-class roots, subjectively self-defining our ‘council house’ social class backgrounds (rubin et al., 2014) and have shared experiences of undertaking unskilled work to support ourselves and our families. most of the team grew up in deprived areas in the north of england (n=6) and are the first generation of our families to enter he (n=6). we refer to ourselves throughout this study as ‘collaborators’ rather than ‘participants’ as we have all taken an active researcher role in the project. we discussed confidentiality and ethical boundaries as a team and agreed we would foster a non-judgemental and developmental space where we could air conflicting views safely, and they would be respected and heard by the group. as such, we adopted the cae ethical stance outlined in lapadat (2017), agreeing that sharing was non-hierarchical and non-coercive, with all collaborators having an equitable voice in the project design, research process and authorship. as such, all collaborators are authors of this paper and owners of the stories shared during the project. conversations and data were kept confidential to the project team and each collaborator chose a pseudonym to protect their identity in the data. the emotive subject being explored in this study could result in exposing prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 4 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 vulnerabilities to each other (lapadat, 2017); therefore, we agreed to listen openly to each other’s opinions and experiences and only share what felt comfortable to do so. collaborators could choose to leave the project at any point and their individual data could be removed. 3. data collection and analysis we chose to adopt a concurrent model of data collection and analysis, with all collaborators actively engaged in the research process through an iterative process of self-reflection and group sharing. data collection and analysis was collaborative, reflective and participatory, following the iterative process outlined by chang et al. (2013). for group data collection, analysis and meaning making, we met online using microsoft teams five times over a period of five months. we recorded each teams live session and auto-generated transcripts in microsoft stream for subsequent analysis. to promote ongoing sharing in between collaborative sessions, we also actively used the microsoft teams chat function for instant messaging. during the first three live sessions we explored the subject, discussed our reflections, and asked open questions to delve deeper into the data. in each session we identified individual data to collect before we met again. autoethnographic data types collected for this study included personal memory, self-reflection and self-analysis (chang et al., 2013). individual work was shared via padlets to allow for collaborators to use diagrams, images, video and audio as well as text in our reflective activities. the final two meetings and individual actions were dedicated to data review (dialogic and individual) and meaning making, resulting in the identification of themes through group dialogue. interestingly, the team agreed the themes unanimously illustrating the interconnectedness of our different stories. once the whole team agreed we had reached data saturation and the themes were finalised, we embarked on collaborative writing, including one further live meeting to agree the writing actions, and continued ‘checking in’ with each other via instant messaging. the team collaboratively agreed copyright free images, many of which were initially shared on the padlets during individual reflections, to represent the themes as visual metaphors and to highlight the multimedia approach to data collection. 4. findings five themes emerged from the dialogic and individual data in this study: 1. connection through differences and commonalities 2. graft 3. inner tensions 4. authenticity ‘i am who i am’ 5. the bigger picture individual reflective data, recorded on three separate padlets, explored our educator values relating to working-class experiences, imagined a utopian future for he and examined the conflicts and tensions we feel as working-class educators. theme 1: connection through differences and commonalities figure 1. (rupert kittinger-sereinig, pixabay) as we explored our individual reflections through group dialogue, we noticed that whilst our stories had clear similarities, they also featured unique threads, turning points that shaped how we view the world through our individual working-class lenses: ‘we are all sat here now under that label of working-class academics but actually we’ve all got our own background and our own stories to tell’ (jayne) https://pixabay.com/photos/sun-wall-hands-children-s-hands-671362/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 5 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 we each had different routes to becoming educators in he, some returning to education as mature undergraduate students with a family, others progressing directly from school into university and onto doctoral studies. as we shared our stories, we noted that feeling different came through in our early educational experiences, home lives and in our current roles: ‘i was seen as common in high school and others were scared of the council house girl, then i was seen as posh in college’ (diane) ‘my home life was different to my friends. most were 2 parent family, not on council estate’ (kay) ‘identifying myself as a senior lecturer does not feel comfortable to me as i do not feel it reflects who i truly am’ (winifred) imposter syndrome was a common and regular experience for all of us. we found the individual spaces for reflection and iterative collaborative dialogue in a safe, non-judgemental space helped us to reflect on this concept in depth and connected us through our shared feeling of not belonging in academia. this was particularly evident through our unanimous choice of the term ‘educator’ rather than ‘academic’ as that felt more congruent with our identity as a group. this brought to light a shared identity conflict we felt as working-class females to the stereotypical androcentric ‘academic’: ‘i do however often feel like an ‘imposter’ wondering how i have come this far. i would not class myself as being naturally ‘academic’’ (winifred) ‘i describe myself as a teacher as i feel it is more acceptable to have a skills-based career. being an academic is just not ‘me’ (laura) ‘it’s a working-class value, you learn a skill, you learn a trade… there’s a bit of a conflict you don’t class yourself as an academic, you class yourself as a teacher, as an educator’ (jayne) these experiences of feeling different and not belonging in academia play out in our shared educational practices through welcoming and encouraging the strengths that come from the difference and diversity in our learners with an interest in inclusive and accessible practice: ‘i am determined that every student i come across feels a sense of worth in their abilities… i can empathise with the struggles students experience and the barriers they face’ (laura) ‘open, accessible and real-world language – a place where we are open to talk about what we don't understand’ (diana, reflecting on a utopian future for he) theme 2: graft figure 2. (gerd altmann, pixabay) from both dialogic and individual data, it was clear that graft was a consistent value we all held. there was a recognition that we all embraced the pastoral aspect of our role with vigour, indeed we all had responsibilities for this area in our workload. we recognised that these roles may not be realistically resourced within the neoliberal context of he, however we all valued the impact this work had to ensure we met our students’ complex pastoral needs. our experiences helped us to recognise the barriers which students may face, and therefore have a desire to support them: ‘i understand the pressures on students as they try to balance study, placement, work and family demands during their course having experienced it myself. i am empathetic towards students experiencing difficulties and help/guide as much as i can’ (winifred) https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dream-big-work-hard-sign-on-quote-5556539/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 6 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 this is balanced with the challenges we continue to face as individuals in breaking down our own barriers based on our expectations of self and how we believe we are viewed by others: ‘i feel the pressure and responsibility of opening doors for others whilst still trying to break them down myself’ (diana) inevitably we began to discuss the experiences we have had which may underpin these challenges. the sense of grafting to dispel or embrace a label as both working class and female is something we have experienced throughout our lives, and continues to shape our self-identity: ‘there are times in my life now where i feel i do not have respect because of my class, and because i am a woman’ (jayne) we found as a group that we somewhat internalised others’ views about ourselves, leading to our expectations of our achievements being altered: ‘i have lower expectations, it’s all about mindset’ (june) in addition, there was a sense of frustration with regards to ingrained unfairness in society and that the current education system is not designed to address this. there is a danger of feeling disheartened at what is valued in academic progression, namely qualifications and research output, versus what the students really need: support: ‘life is unfair, society is unfair, our education system is deeply unfair. i feel i have had to fight and work hard to have the life i have had now. i see it as my duty as an educator to help and support my students to overcome the barriers they face.’ (jayne) ‘i am not sure that i actually ‘fit’ in this culture, my ideas and contributions can be ignored, and i find a lack of respect. i don’t know how to assert my opinion within the hierarchy’ (laura) ‘we accept widening access students but then don’t make the course accessible to them’ (kay) theme 3: inner tensions figure 3. (gerd altmann, pixabay) this theme connects with both previous themes but looks specifically at our inner tensions and conflicts as working-class educators when supporting our learners. some collaborators felt there were tensions within the different aspects of their roles, often feeling pulled in the direction of ‘educator’ priorities over other ‘academic’ priorities such as research. for example, jayne described a situation whereby she missed a research meeting as a student needed her for pastoral support and stated: ‘that his needs came first’ (jayne) we all came from a working-class background, strongly related to feeling working class and holding working-class values. however, in reality as lecturers, we are no longer working class which creates tension around our authenticity as educators. we discussed the ongoing challenges in connecting with students when there is the potential perception we are not, and in the students’ eyes have never been, working class: ‘we are not working class now but may have come from a variety of working-class backgrounds.’ (june) ‘i never thought i’d live in a detached house with 2 cars!’ (diana) stability is something that a few of the team explored in their reflections. the feelings of ‘hard work’, ‘stability’ and ‘being able to provide’ are inherent within working-class values, yet can create tensions for our roles in an unstable academic sector: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/arrows-many-direction-right-next-3435583/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 7 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 ‘i’m driven towards change and yet deep down i still yearn for stability’ (diana) many of the team reflected on the tensions they face as an educator whilst remaining empathetic to the challenges their working-class students faced: ‘i feel this conflict a lot because i understand the battles my working-class students face, the barriers they have to climb over just to even begin to start being able to learn – something a lot of other people take for granted.’ (jayne) ‘the challenges working-class students face and manage so they can give themselves a university education’ (kay) winifred reflected on her own career and identified that she had been a mature student with family and caring commitments throughout her own studies, therefore relating more to the struggles of students in similar situations. kay, winifred and rowena recognised that many of their students were juggling multiple responsibilities and challenges in life such as financial, housing, health, marital, caring and childcare issues. connecting with theme two, this impacted the way they carried out their academic roles, with a greater emphasis (and graft) on pastoral support activities. the team explored the tensions created whereby rules, policy and regulations dictated what the expectations on students were; however, as educators from a working-class backgrounds, we could see the impact that these often high expectations can have on students’ abilities to perform. for example, kay discussed how students were expected to be available to attend placement seven days a week, but that many of her students had weekend employment in order to support themselves and their families whilst they studied. june described that in order to make ‘the classroom a safe space’ and for ‘the purpose of connecting with the student,’ it may be appropriate for educators to show their congruent selves through sharing their own ‘backgrounds and experiences’. recognising the challenges and inner tensions experienced by our students may influence the educational practices of lecturers from working-class backgrounds. in alignment with the recurring concept of graft, diana wondered whether this meant that ‘we work harder for our learners?’ theme 4: authenticity ‘i am who i am’ figure 4. (ar130405, pixabay) several of the team analysed their inner discourse around feeling authentic in their role and their unease at being labelled as a lecturer or academic, preferring to identify themselves with students through the term educator, teacher or previous professional status such as ‘nurse’ to establish authenticity and credibility. this emerged from our need to ‘de-label ourselves to allow students to feel we are approachable’ (june) and be there to support and encourage them in their learning journey: ‘i see myself as a partner in my students’ learning journey. a guide rather than lecturer’ (laura) ‘i feel my life experiences and background help me to be a ‘normal person’ when teaching’ (rowena) in contrast, jayne felt that students may not value her credibility as an academic due to not having a doctorate: ‘i don’t have a phd. what am i doing lecturing at a university?’ (jayne) several collaborators felt their working-class background meant they did not possess the professional language expected of a lecturer, linking with the feelings of imposter syndrome explored in theme one: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/finger-fingerprint-security-digital-2081169/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 8 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 ‘academic language is a personal barrier and enabler of imposter syndrome’ (jayne, june, winifred & diana) the theme of collaborators revealing their hidden selves through working in academia or alternatively wearing ‘camouflage’ to fit into academia feature in several of the participants reflections: ‘once you feel you are respected you feel valued, this then helps you to reveal your hidden self’ (jayne) ‘the masks we wear’ (june) this short phrase is powerful as it relates to the whole team’s feelings around fitting into academia. from the clothes academics are expected to wear, the language expected to be used and the image to be portrayed to partner institutions and external organisations. diana chose to respond to this pressure by ‘rebelling’ and wore clothing she felt comfortable in to be true to her authentic self. in discussing ‘the masks we wear’ june also highlights the many ways we adapt our teaching styles to meet the needs of the students. one of the ways of achieving authenticity was identified as reassuring students (and ourselves) that as academics we have completed a similar journey: ‘i am who i am, and i’ve been where you are’ (laura, rowena & winifred) theme 5: the bigger picture figure 5. (peggy and marco lachmann-anke, pixabay) this theme mainly emerged from analysis of the individual and dialogic data on what would we do if there was a blank slate and we could be the educators we wanted to be, teach the way we wanted to teach, and truly meet all our students’ needs – our utopian he future. this was grounded in our collective strong drive for student-centred education. our value for the student journey over the grade was clear, knowing that our learners are juggling multiple priorities and may be aiming for a pass as a measure of success. alternatively, they may be aiming higher but becoming frustrated when life gets in the way of their progress. we reflected on our role as educators in supporting them to see the bigger picture – a degree is often what they will be judged on in their chosen future profession, rarely focusing on the grades they attained: ‘acknowledging our expectations as educators are not high scores, it is to pass the module, even after resits, as the bigger picture involves balance of self and balance of life (e.g. part-time work, caring responsibilities, family life on top)’ (kay) an ideal future in he would ensure the loci of control are holistically centred and defined by the student. several members of the team reflected on the need to remove barriers and improve accessibility of education for all: ‘students have more control and responsibility over learning’ (kay) ‘promote culture of learning for knowledge rather than assessment from day one’ (winifred) ‘24/7 education (through both educator, part automation and ai) no boundaries to access to suit if need to study at night’ (june) ‘free and open access to he’ (diana & june) it became clear the bigger picture involved connecting the lived experience of educators to student experiences, often through storytelling and signposting. the team identified the priority needs to remain on the students’ story, rather than the academics’. we explored a future where we could truly work in partnership, breaking doors and cocreating the possible: https://pixabay.com/photos/juggle-balls-sinai-in-the-air-4919335/ https://pixabay.com/photos/juggle-balls-sinai-in-the-air-4919335/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 9 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 ‘we can see the bigger picture ’cause we're almost on the other side of the open door… i feel the pressure and responsibility of opening doors for others whilst still trying to break them down myself’ (diana) ‘students and educators as door breakers, we are co-creators of the possible… it’s about breaking down barriers too… this whole thing of empowering the students rather than talking at them’ (june) 5. discussion this study investigates the stories of seven female educators with working-class backgrounds. taking a cae approach, we found that our educational values and practices can be clearly traced back to our working-class roots. the five themes emerging from this research: connection through differences and commonalities; graft; inner tensions; authenticity ‘i am who i am’ and the bigger picture are tightly interconnected, generating an understandably complex and rich picture of contemporary female educator identity. as non-traditional students who entered academia in order to improve from our workingclass roots, we acknowledged that we had all internalised the strong drive to work harder to achieve success and agreed the concept of ‘graft’ as a shared core value. education is often touted as the best tool to promote social mobility (gillies, 2005; maslen, 2019); however, our experiences demonstrate that although opportunities may be available, there are numerous barriers which make the climb from bottom to top more arduous. some studies suggest that meritocratic values are internalised by individuals (mendick et al., 2015; smith & skrbiš, 2017; spohrer et al., 2018) which is reflected in our shared values of grafting for success. as a group we discussed how success for us was not defined from the result of being an ‘academic’, but rather from working hard and becoming the best educator we could possibly be for the benefit of our students. jin and ball (2020) agree with this notion, indicating the success of working-class individuals academically was a result of ‘individual striving’, rather than the transfer of social or cultural capital. our findings align with loveday’s (2016) notion that in order to succeed in academia, working class females are socially constructed to keep their heads down and work hard in order to comply with the neoliberalist education system from a very young age. we all valued the need for ‘graft’ as a quality that helped us to do our job well leading to a shared consensus that equality of opportunity is not simply about opening doors, but rather ensuring there is adequate support to walk through them. it can be argued that our collective feeling of imposter syndrome may have emerged from the conflict between a neoliberalist responsibility for our own successes and an empathy with our learners from our own journey into academia and the struggles they have fitting into such a system (davies & bansel, 2005). a previous study highlighted the need for the sector to question how the he environment elicits widespread feelings of imposter syndrome in our students (feenstra et al., 2020). our findings illustrate that we would benefit from also posing these same questions to fully understand the imposter-inducing environment for our staff. the recognition of these barriers meant that we all felt a responsibility as educators to provide emotional support to our students. as we are all female, it can be argued that this responsibility of emotional work could stem from our workingclass female roots. butler (2004) states that being female encompasses a ‘cultural performance’ of assumed gendered characteristics of behaviour and actions, of which providing emotional support is one. the ‘feminisation of poverty’ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 10 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 describes women’s greater involvement in emotional labour, household duties and childcare (chant, 2008) which could result in an unconscious inequality within academia. upon discussing the theme of emotional labour during our collective data collection sessions, we discovered that we each had taken on significant pastoral responsibilities. the findings illustrate a sense of ‘going above and beyond’ standard pastoral expectations which could be at odds with the sense of academic capitalism created by the neoliberal discourse (thornton, 2014). lynch (2010) contests that ‘to be a successful academic is to be unencumbered by caring’ (p. 63). the fact we all agreed we had chosen to undertake such high levels of emotional labour activities, knowing they are often seen as unrewarded and unacknowledged (leathwood, 2004), may further demonstrate both the unconscious inequality we felt as women in academia, and our willingness to graft towards lessening such inequalities for our students and peers. as working-class female educators, we felt that we had to ‘graft’ more within our academic career to balance the perceived gendered responsibilities placed upon us. reay (1997) highlighted that female working-class academics were less likely to hold positions of authority, lead projects and had to work harder to prove themselves than their middle-class counterparts. our data illustrates a sense of frustration with current he infrastructure that lacks insight into the barriers faced by working-class students, particularly females with caring responsibilities. this frustration is echoed by reay (2013) who suggests that social mobility is not sufficient to overcome injustice in society, as it does not take account of the educational inequalities students face in terms of economic and social problems. it could be suggested that our lived experience and drive to meet the academic and pastoral needs of our students fits in within the sector’s widening participation agenda, yet it feels there is still a long way to go before these needs can be truly met. from the initial call for collaborators to the moment of writing this paper, we sought to find belonging and connection with others who have had similar experiences. we are no longer working class and yet do not fully view ourselves as ‘academic’ either, instead we fall somewhere in between. there are benefits that come with recognising this ‘otherness’ in that we are potentially more able to authentically align with our students (waterfield et al., 2019), especially in an institution which has a high proportion of first generation he students. our findings illustrate that we welcome the diverse ‘habitus’ (bourdieu, 1977) behaviours of all our students formed from the values, perceptions, language and tastes acquired from childhood and social class (edgerton & roberts, 2014; johansson & jones, 2019). using class background to infuse teaching in these ways can put students at ease (brook & michell, 2012), and we have found that analysing and sharing our approaches to teaching has helped us explore our own ‘otherness’ within a community of like-minded educators and celebrate the diverse strengths we bring to our educational practices. friedman et al. (2021) explore the idea of ‘deflecting privilege’ stating that 47% of people in middle class or professional roles still see themselves as working class. putting their achievements down to ‘hard work’ and disassociating themselves from the elitism associated with middle-class privilege. this stance is reflected in the narrative stories from our research where working-class roots underpin participants’ perceived identity. jin and ball (2020) examine the concept of ‘meritocracy’ where working-class students work hard to achieve educational success as opposed to middle-class students who have the benefit of parental support and private tuition. their prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 11 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 research identifies the emergence of a ‘third class’ where participants no longer fit into their working-class identity yet lack the opportunities and lifestyles middle-class status holds (jin & ball ,2020). loveday (2015) examined the links between uk working-class academics, cultural mobility and middle-class status, within a team of he academics tasked with recruiting students from underrepresented groups. one participant identified as being ‘educated working class’ which is perhaps a more accurate description of the emerging ‘third class’. the findings from these studies highlight the congruence with issues of identity voiced from the participants within our research. this study demonstrates a persistence of multiple barriers to academic belonging. similar to brook and michell (2012), we also found that inaccessible academic language left us feeling excluded at times. some of the team also felt that academic attainment led to feeling a lack of credibility or the sense of being an outsider because they do not hold a doctorate which concurs with findings of previous studies that being known as a ‘dr’ enabled acceptance within academia (brook & michell, 2012; johansson & jones, 2019). when further exploring the issue of academic belonging, we reflected on times when we wore ‘camouflage’ or ‘masks’ in an attempt to assimilate with the system (shukie, 2020; wilson et al., 2020). tsaousi (2020) discusses the identity of female academics working in he revealing that female participants felt the need to ‘play the game’ within academia, having to work harder to fit in and dress appropriately for their audience. drawing upon the feminist theoretical perspective of standpoint theory (harding, 2004), our findings illustrate how our unique social positions had shaped us in identifying as educators rather than academics and how we were in the process of internalising our conflict between the neoliberal approach to he and our own female working class values. in analysing self, both as individuals and as a supportive group, we recognised that the more experience we had in academia, the more confident we felt to be our true selves, illustrating that the route to authentic selfacceptance is a cornerstone to developing congruent educator identities (gillaspy, 2019). our research highlights the unexplored potential of flexing academia to take account of the bigger picture, resonating with our values of supporting the criticality of personalisation for students and breaking down the neoliberalist barriers in expectations to study under rigid parameters and timings. interestingly, bunn et al. (2019) argue for a reframing of the use of the term ‘flexibility’ within he which feeds into our suggestion for further exploration of this concept. it is unlikely he students from workingclass backgrounds will disappear. there will always be a spectrum of experiences due to societal constructs, so we need to face the reality as educators in catering for the diversity of need in our cohorts. consensus from this team was evident from the timeline of the past (our working-class roots), today (our teaching experiences) and in the future (our future students’ needs) where academia and academics will need to flex and change with the needs of their student groups. blended and online learning models which feature the flexibility of ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning are on the rise (alexander et al., 2019; brown et al., 2020) and may suit students, and consequently academics, from working-class backgrounds by increasing the inclusivity of he learning environments. the bigger picture therefore calls for us to take collective responsibility to challenge the inflexibility of academia and foster a more open, accessible and authentic he future for all. prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 12 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 implications and future research whilst cae allows for a move from single to multiple researchers to be involved with the research (roy & uekusa, 2020), as female lecturers teaching across health and social care disciplines in a single university, it’s possible that our collective voice does not represent the wider experience of working class academics. our goal of exploring multiple perspectives was somewhat limited by the gender of the academics that stepped forward to be part of the study. this allowed for our research to take on a clear gender focus; however, it also meant that we were unable to explore the male working-class voice in our collaboration which is an area that warrants further research. our project adds to the evidence that this method is being increasingly chosen by female researchers and we agree with chang et al. (2013) that this is a phenomenon which could be examined in more detail. in bringing together this collaborative group, we self-identified as working class through shared experiences of growing up in social housing and undertaking unskilled work to boost income. whilst we acknowledge this subjective self-definition may limit the generalisability of the findings, this has been highlighted as an important missing measure of social class (rubin et al., 2014) and from the experiences of undertaking our study, this approach contributed to creating an inclusive collaboration. we also had a high number of collaborators compared with many cae studies which could potentially add rigour and applicability of the findings (lapadat, 2017). however, with seven collaborators in the team, the amount and complexity of the data was increased, meaning we were interdependent on each other’s research efforts to agree the recurring themes from our multiple perspectives (chang et al., 2013). it would be beneficial to repeat this study across smaller and larger groups to determine if group size influences data analysis and interpretation. the collaboration was carried out during the coronavirus pandemic which meant that we had to carry out our discussions using digital platforms such as microsoft teams and padlet. this was an innovative aspect of the project and allowed for much of the video recordings to be auto-transcribed and for us to use multimedia for our reflections and self-analysis. however, most of the team had not met before and found it more difficult to build up the same rapport online as we may have experienced in a face-to-face environment. the element of sensory engagement such as non-verbal cues were potentially lost online, meaning the meetings were not as free-flowing as they could have been (seitz, 2016). cae research requires trust and the ability to share vulnerability (chang et al., 2013; lapadat, 2017) and this may have been hampered through using an online platform for collaborating. cae as a transformational process this cae project has been transformational for each of us individually and as a group. it has become a ‘community of practice’ (wenger, 1998), a safe space in which to ask for support without feeling like an imposter and a place to authentically explore and further develop ourselves as educators. in this space we are free to share our passion for creating a more accessible and student-centred he of the future that celebrates otherness and empowers all to flourish regardless of background. the connections we have made through this project have activated confidence in our collective voices, helping us to feel more settled in what is a turbulent and complex time in he. we have grown wings in our research and teaching prism (2022) gillaspy et al. (2022) prism 13 © 2022 prism. issn: 2514-5347 ambitions, encouraging each other to articulate the ways in which we want to drive real change and where we will focus our individual and collective energies in the future. it has been an enlightening experience for all of us, leaving us feeling less like imposters and more like we belong as educator academics. 6. conclusion this paper has offered an honest narrative and given a voice to working-class female academics, an often forgotten and arguably underrepresented group within research and academia. through our collaborative dialogue and individual reflections, this paper aimed to bring new insights into the contemporary experiences of what it means to be a female working-class academic. we have acknowledged that the transition from being working class to an ‘academic’ has brought about many complex conflicts that result in us often feeling like (de)valued imposters, unsure of where we fit in within the traditional socially constructed role of what it means to be an academic. our collaboration has allowed us to realise that we are not alone, that ‘the masks we wear’ are figuratively shared with other women in academia which has enabled the beginnings of a feeling of rightful belonging within us all. using our stories as ‘windows to the world,’ we have found a freedom and a kinship and most importantly a new-found sense of pride in the authentically unique skills we have to offer as female working-class educator academics. 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) gillaspy et al. 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(2020). university lecturers’ construction of the ‘ideal’ undergraduate student. journal of further and higher education, 44(1), 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2018.1504010 https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1767936 https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2018.1504010 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 65 ‘risky business?’ on perceptions of risk and vulnerability in further education copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 65-81 christina donovan edge hill university donovanc@edgehill.ac.uk abstract since incorporation, the economic value of students to colleges has seen the language of 'risk' and 'drop-out' permeate the further education sector, placing retention and achievement high up on the agenda, with what appears to be little consideration for the consequences this might have for the students the terms describe. this study provides a detailed exploration of the conflicting accounts of the term ‘risk’ from the perspectives of tutors, support staff and managers within a further education college and the implications for their practice with students who are identified as ‘at risk’. the findings suggest that perceived risk is strongly associated with behaviours which make the student ‘vulnerable’, which could adversely affect students from so-called ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds. therefore, this paper makes the case that the notion of risk could disproportionately impact upon students who are marginalised for a variety of reasons. this could lead to practices which actively exclude students who are perceived to be ‘vulnerable’, and therefore of less value to an institution operating within a neoliberal marketplace. 1. introduction further education policy, as in many other parts of the educational sector, is littered with the language of ‘standards’, ‘rigour’, ‘excellence’, ‘performance’, ‘targets’ and ‘accountability’. as a result of the 1992 further and higher education act, in which further education providers were incorporated into a centralised funding system, competition for market-share has become a key driver of institutional practice. as colleges become increasingly more ‘business-like’, students come to represent units of value. those who are lower value (i.e. less likely to complete their chosen course) are a financial risk. as such, this prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 66 paper posits that ‘risk’ represents an ethical dilemma for educators who are simultaneously expected to balance their success rates with their duty to promote social and cultural inclusion (lippke, 2012). this paper will outline research findings which investigate the language of ‘risk’, retention and ‘drop-out’ in a general further education college in the north of england. it will argue that high-stakes teaching environments and performance-based education policy has created a conflict of professional identity for lecturers, whilst students who constitute their definition of risk are simultaneously the subject of both their concern and the source of blame for their ‘at risk’ status. this paper will go on to demonstrate that performance-based accountability practices fuel individualism and ‘self-responsibility’, leading, in some cases, to risk-averse practices and the ‘othering’ of those perceived as ‘vulnerable’. 2. the neoliberal environment: performativity, competitive individualism and risk the relentless pace of public education policy since 1992 has created unprecedented instability in the sector. the prevalence of free-market practices that the further education and skills sector has been subjected to over the last thirty years has seen services which were traditionally the preserve of locally-accountable authorities, being gradually co-opted to serve a different purpose. this new purpose, influenced by what harvey (2005) refers to as the ‘neoliberal project’ is one in which the freedom of the market is paramount. this changing set of policies call into question the purpose of education, whose needs it is supposed to serve and how these are supposed to be met (apple, 2006). the ‘neoliberalisation’ of education policy caused a significant shift in how policy is ideologically underpinned, fundamentally affecting values and operational practices within the sector, at the heart of which lies competition (lazzarato, 2009). the logic of the free market leaves the environment ripe for individualism, as the spirit of competition relies on the creation of winners and losers (leach, 2017). it is therefore the risk of losing that shapes institutional practice and the mechanisms employed to ‘win’. risk thrives in conditions of uncertainty, and it has become paramount for colleges to avoid such risks by employing whatever tactics they can to mitigate against them. there is evidence to suggest that such practices have led to the prevalence of ‘game-playing’, as institutions compete for the ‘most valuable’ students (finlay & finnie, 2002). in essence, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 67 the ‘student’ becomes a ‘unit’ which can be used to calculate levels of success or failure in an increasingly unstable market (lucas & crowther, 2016). competitive individualism has therefore shifted how relationships are forged within colleges. as gleeson et al. (2015) reflect, “in a context in which courses were there to be delivered and students were viewed as a means of securing funding… marketization, managerialism and funding centred-ness have reduced caring in fe”. further, finlay and finnie (2002, p. 154) demonstrate that at its worst, competition between further education providers has seen a wide-spread use of coercive tactics to attract or retain students: “comments about ‘luring’ or ‘poaching’ pupils or of schools ‘hanging on’ to them suggest perceptions of learners as, at worst, commodities that can be traded or captured”. this implies a disregard for student needs and further demonstrates a fundamental shift in values as a result of policies which force education providers to become more ‘business-like’. 2.1 performativity and practices of risk-aversion according to bjursell (2016) the trend towards commodification in education and the resultant market value of students represents a “demise of the nation state as a guarantor of social justice” (p. 292). the uncertainty created by the neoliberal environment has resulted in risk being carried by individuals within institutions, and thus pressure to conform to centralised ‘standards’ to survive the ever-present threat of audit and inspection. o’leary and rami (2017) argue that as a result colleges have become ever-more heterogeneous over the last thirty years in a bid to satisfy the needs of government. this so-called ‘standards agenda’ manifests itself in relentless audit practices, increased surveillance of teaching, monitoring of performance and uniformity of curriculum, accompanied by strict hierarchical management structures (avis, 2003; hill et al., 2015). this led to teaching practices which are performance-based and target-driven rather than studentcentred, a phenomenon commonly referred to ‘performativity’ (ball, 2005). performativity therefore not only dictates what learning is valuable but also the kind of student that is valued. as ball (2005) asserts, performative culture reflects the “quality or value of an individual or organisation within a field of judgement. this issue of who controls the field of judgement is crucial” (p. 144). gleeson et al. (2015) are further keen to point out that the data drawn on by policy-makers (grade profiles and success rates) do not fully reflect what a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 68 provider does in producing inclusive, transformational learning environments. conversely, failure to recognise the important work that colleges do in this regard could be undone as “basing funding on retention and achievement removes the very foundations of these relationships” (illsley & waller, 2017, p. 479). the implication is that if a student appears to be a ‘risk’, they are of no value to the institution. as such, certain kinds of student are to be avoided for a college to stay financially healthy (ibid.). atkins (2017) asserts that the policy environment has forced conceptualisations of young people into two broad categories: as ‘problem’ and as ‘resource’. these conceptualisations allow further education institutions to identify the ‘problem’ students before they cause any financial damage. 2.2 ‘becoming neoliberal’: impact on professional identity several studies have analysed the impact of the neoliberal, performative environment upon the professional identity of lecturers in further and higher education (avis, 1999; bathmaker & avis, 2005; ylijoki & ursin, 2013), which constitutes a move from ‘professionalism’ to ‘managerialism’ (avis, 1999). the transition from autonomous professional to subject of audit means that the pursuit of key performance indicators can potentially override matters of transformative teaching and learning. the prevalence of risk at all levels of the institution cultivates environments where surveillance and evaluation are embedded into the everyday activities of actors within an institution. as page (2017, p. 3) notes, “we are all surveillance workers” now as the drive to produce favourable data has created a hyper-sensitivity towards identifying risk. preoccupation with risk can lead practitioners to develop a deficit approach towards students, which can lead to pathologising them in various ways if they deviate from the expectation that the environment dictates (atkins, 2016; bathmaker & avis, 2005; illsley & waller, 2017). notions of individualism and ‘self-responsibility’ do not appreciate the need for collectivism in meeting social challenges. within a competitive market, schools and colleges are single-handedly responsible for their own success or failure. falling success rates are the responsibility of individual teachers, just as failure to succeed is the responsibility of the student (finlay et al., 2007). boocock (2015, p. 728) contends that “funding and targets are two of the most powerful levers” used in government policy to meet retention and achievement targets on an institutional level, whilst keeping day-to-day governance at a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 69 distance. he argues that top-down policy reforms assume certain levels of ‘self-interest’ on the part of the individual, whether that be the institution, the manager or the lecturer. it has been further argued by coffield (2017, p. 33) that ‘audit threatens to become a form of learned ignorance’. when neoliberalism ‘becomes what educationalists do’ (ball & olmedo, 2013, p. 85) this necessitates a shift in value-orientation. this shift proposes that individuals are responsible for their own fate, and this notion is reinforced by practices of selfinterest (boocock, 2015). atkins (2017, p. 7) has argued that in this context, by “othering and homogenising certain (working-class) groups of young people… [they are held] personally responsible for their failure to participate in a neoliberal knowledge economy”. in adopting the notion that the ‘problem’ student is in deficit, colleges can justify the exclusion of those who would negatively affect retention and achievement. this form of aggressive individualism is reinforced through fear. teaching has become a ‘high stakes’ activity (o’leary, 2015) where those students with who are richer in ability, are more favoured (hill et al., 2015). in effect, social and cultural value translates to economic value in this setting. students of ‘low value’ pose a financial ‘risk’ as colleges are paid on the basis of student numbers (illsley & waller, 2017). this has led some institutions to adopt ‘risk aversion’ strategies as some students come to make good or bad ‘business sense’ (finlay and finnie, 2002; boocock, 2015). the aim of this research study was to establish how risk was conceptualised by staff within fe institutions, and what the implications might be for students identified as such. 3. methodology one of the central aims of the research was to understand perceptions of the term ‘risk’ and how these shaped the thinking and practice of staff in a general further education college (gfe). gfes are predominantly large institutions with multiple campuses offering generally vocational qualifications from pathway (pre-level 1) to level 4, with some also offering higher education provision. therefore, fe encompasses not only a broad variety of education provision, but also a broad diversity of students. the conceptualisation of ‘risk’ is particularly important in this setting, as many of the students have experienced previous educational failure. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 70 the study therefore sought to establish how ‘risk’ was defined, what staff members considered the characteristics of an ‘at risk’ student to be and how these perceptions influenced their thinking towards them. therefore, the research was concerned with the principles that affected the use of the word, rather than the word itself (moses & knustson, 2007). the way an individual interprets a phenomenon can have significant consequences for the world around them, and as such the aim was to understand the lived experience of the word and the nuances of its everyday use. 3.1 qualitative interviews a series of semi-structured, one-to-one qualitative interviews were conducted with a cross-section of staff and students across the institution. the interview schedule was designed to be as open as possible to allow as much freedom as possible for participants to describe how they perceive the world around them (cohen, morrison, & manion, 2003). the interviews sought to establish how these perceptions differed amongst staff in different positions, in addition to any commonalities in the way ‘at risk’ students were identified within the institution. the interviews were considered manually using thematic analysis. each participant was asked to define what the terms ‘risk’ and ‘inclusion’ meant to them and responses were categorised under the broad pre-defined codes of ‘risk’ and ‘inclusion’, while the sub-codes that followed emerged from the raw data in the transcripts. this approach ensured that the analysis was as true to the raw data as possible, which allowed themes to emerge directly from individual experience. 3.2. participants and research setting the context for the research was a large general further education college (gfe) in the north of england. a total of eight interviews were conducted with staff from various departments across the institution including two senior managers (executive director for marketing and student services, head of school for hairdressing and beauty therapy), a middle manager (student services manager), two support staff (learning support practitioner and mental health support tutor) and three lecturers (from art & design, catering & hospitality and computing & it). participants were approached from a diverse range of curriculum and support areas to establish a holistic view of how ‘risk’ was conceptualised and prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 71 used in practice across the college. the name of the institution and the participants in the study were anonymised to protect their identity. 4. findings: understanding perceptions of the ‘at risk’ student the findings of the study revealed that there was a broad acceptance by all participants that the definition of the term 'risk' in the context of the college was linked to the belief that a student was likely to withdraw from their course of study. however, this seemed to be closely linked to the participants’ personal interaction with students: whether they were teaching, support or managerial staff. as such the findings suggest that the term ‘risk’ was used in a standardised way but the meaning was highly subjective. it was a term generally linked to students who were ‘disadvantaged’ in some respect and associated with personal characteristics or environmental factors that may affect their chances of success. the most common word used to describe an ‘at risk’ student was ‘vulnerable’. “... i would regard erm the definition of at risk at college as being with reference to particular learners or a learner who erm for a set of reasons or descriptives or what we know we would regard them as a college as being a learner who may be more likely to drop out… erm or a learner who's more vulnerable than another learner, a wobbler” [director of marketing & student services] therefore, although risk was associated with non-completion, it was also linked to a series of behaviours which were used to calculate the level of risk the student presented. the analysis that follows describes definitions of risk under four key themes which emerged from the data: ‘internal risk behaviours’, ‘external risk behaviours’, ‘profit and loss’ and ‘subversion’. 4.1. internal risk behaviours internal risk behaviours were those that could be linked to a student’s performance on their course, such as poor attendance and low achievement. therefore, in one respect, a student was 'at risk' if they were 'not performing to the standard' [lecturer 2, computing & it] that was required to complete a course. this could be because the student in question was missing work due to absence, or because they were failing to meet their targets. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 72 the notion of 'not performing to the standard' was linked to a lack of motivation, poor behaviour and a failure to 'contribute' on the part of the student. managers in the study stated that it was used frequently to describe a student who was going through the disciplinary process: one example provided by a senior manager linked the notion of risk to conduct, describing this kind of student as 'completely disaffected' [director of marketing & student services]. however, many of the participants drew an explicit distinction between what they described as the 'college' view of risk and their personal definitions of risk. support staff were more likely to link risk to notions of safety and welfare, stating that their responsibilities to students identified as ‘at risk’ extended 'beyond the college' to encompass the experience of the student in a more holistic capacity. although they acknowledged that attendance and achievement was an indicator of risk, they were keen that the student should not feel judged because of these factors. as a result, they appeared to be more concerned with external risk indicators that may impact upon learning. “[an ‘at risk’ student is] anybody who is at risk of not completing their educational studies within the college. i think that's the college perception. erm, what my perception is, it's even more broad-ranging than that. we have students who we know are at risk of not participating in their studies fully or passing them successfully, erm, but then there are so many issues outside of the college that are impacting upon their lives, that we kind of have a conscious and moral responsibility to make sure those students are safe” [learning support practitioner] “what lecturers in the college would see as risk within the college is the very low attendance, unpredictable attendance, erratic, not doing the work, but then i see another picture... to me it's wider than this college” [mental health support tutor] the above demonstrates how conceptualisations of risk were often context-dependent. although there was a common understanding of risk as non-completion, the nature of the support staff role expanded this definition to include safeguarding and protection. therefore, from an internal perspective, risk could constitute poor performance on a course, a potential ‘drop-out’ or a safeguarding concern. as such, the use of the term varied according to the prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 73 kind of relationship the staff member had with students. for some (particularly the executive director for marketing and student services) the term ‘risk’ could be used to describe all three sets of circumstances described above. “i think that can vary depending on which, on the role we may play in college. at risk may be, for example, someone who hasn't gone through the full admissions process and has arrived very late in the process… erm, somebody, who erm, has had a lot of support at school… anger management, or has been in care... in terms of being at risk from a corporate point of view, from a college point of view it's about them being at risk of not attending and therefore not achieving. dropping out, early drop out… i have two departments that i look after that at risk would be... well, mind you, three actually... so at risk i would say predominantly would be student services… but then 'at risk' is also from my point of view safeguarding and making sure that we keep all our learners safe so there are a number of different 'at risk’” [director of marketing and student services] the complexity in this (abbreviated) statement by the director for marketing and student services echoes the complexity in identifying internal risk behaviours though the notion of the standardised ‘risk as non-completion’ definition; though this complexity was not always acknowledged. when questioned further, the director responded: “i don’t have a strong view on that. i think i understand what i mean by at risk”. however, the subjective use of the term ‘risk’ as associated variously with non-completion, safety, behaviour and performance led to a blurring of definition which appeared to have the effect of linking any notion of vulnerability with risk. 4.2. external risk behaviours external risk behaviours were linked to environmental factors that manifested themselves in terms of behaviour in college. all members of staff interviewed acknowledged that there were external influences that either reinforced, or were the cause of a 'risk' status. some of the external circumstances cited by participants included care leavers, students from non-traditional families, students with financial issues, domestic violence in the home, students with criminal records, students who were registered carers and teenage parents, but this is not an exhaustive list. there were also links to the personal characteristics of the prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 74 student such as learning difficulties, mental health issues and disabilities. if the student had known involvement with external agencies, this also seemed to be an immediate indication of risk [head of school, hairdressing & beauty therapy]. these risk indicators manifested themselves variously in the forms of behaviours such as ‘loneliness’, ‘disorganisation’, ‘forgetfulness’, ‘fearfulness’, ‘confusion’, ‘tearfulness’, ‘laziness’, ‘fatigue’, ‘de-motivation’, ‘disaffection’, ‘anger’ and ‘apathy’. as stated, the most common word used to describe this student of this kind was 'vulnerable'. however, some participants also seemed to suggest that students carried the burden of their vulnerability themselves, in the sense that they were somehow responsible for their circumstances and the consequences for achievement on their course. they 'made themselves' at risk, either due to external influences in their lives or because of their level of personal commitment to the course. “...a student could come to you and reveal things going on their life that put them at risk of withdrawing from education... a student can put themselves at risk by what they reveal, by what they do” [student services manager] in this sense being ‘at risk’ often meant that the issues experienced by these students were not just 'beyond their control', but also 'beyond our (the college’s) control' [student services manager]. as one lecturer put it, “...just using the term 'at risk' identifies and labels the student at risk even further i think” [lecturer 1, art & design]. 4.3. risk calculation, profit and loss several participants were explicit about the institutional pressure to meet expected targets for retention and achievement, where in the teaching context ‘risk’ was associated with financial loss. therefore, to calculate risk, they needed a way to identify it. as a result, vulnerability (or external risk indicators) became a way of diagnosing risk. “those were the kind of er, characteristics, that you had to instil (as a senior tutor) into tutors so that we knew when somebody was not going to be funded for some reason and where the figures for our particular sections were going to be at risk” [lecturer 2, computing & it] prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 75 in some cases, this was before students had even started college. both senior managers in the study stated that risk can be identified as early as enrolment through disclosures on their application form (such as declared convictions), mental health issues or learning difficulties or displaying ‘anxious’ behaviour. it seemed that the pressure associated with retention and achievement caused staff to be vigilant to what they perceived as ‘vulnerability’. for some, there was a self-conscious recognition of the dissonance they experienced in relation to this. “in the first six weeks we’re obviously looking at our students quite harshly i suppose… we have no choice. we’re forced to do that.” [lecturer 3, catering & hospitality] the need to identify at risk students in the first six weeks of the academic term caused staff to work with risk on monetary terms. within this context the risk is no longer attributed to the student, but becomes a tool to identify where money may be lost. one participant linked this to changes in funding policy: “i really think it's come about with changes to funding and stuff like that… where the student's seen as a pound... so they're at risk of going, we're at risk of losing money” [student services manager] the pressures associated with this view of risk made the definition and use of the term sometimes problematic: i think there’s a lot of pressure from subject areas, curriculum areas, almost seen as black and white, it’s sort of figures… they’ve got targets to meet erm, so there’s that difficulty [mental health support tutor] 4.4 risk and subversion some staff felt that there was leverage in the use of the term ‘risk’ as a strategic tool to get help needed for the student and appeal to the self-interest of staff. “i find it helpful because if you say it to other people they tend to take notice of it... if you said it to a manager, their first thought would be 'my stats'” [student services manager] prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 76 “i do think there needs to be a general term to use... highlighting, flagging up... that's the danger, that people can fall off the radar and not be picked up” [learning support practitioner] in this sense, the term was necessary to ensure students were retained. the two members of staff above felt that the college was already losing many students who were never identified. for support staff, students 'at risk' were addressing 'major, major difficulties in their life' [learning support practitioner]. however, in the context of economic risk, there was a general sense in the data that welfare was often subsidiary to targets. however, support staff were more likely to use the term only with students in the context of support and safety. 5. discussion and conclusion it has become evident through the process of analysing the interview data that 'risk' is a term with multiple definitions. the analysis found four key ways of accounting for risk within the institution: ‘internal risk behaviours’, ‘external risk behaviours’, ‘profit and loss’ and ‘subversion’. the tensions that existed between the uses of ‘risk’ in this context were made explicit in the dissonance experienced by the managers and lecturers who at once had a duty to support students displaying either internal or external ‘risk behaviours’, and also protect the interests of their course through the monitoring of profit and loss. this tension appeared to complicate the view of students who fell into the ‘risk’ category meaning that the identification of a ‘risk’ behaviour became steeped in subjective experience. the conflict in the narratives of the lecturers in particular was reflected in their self-conscious understanding of the ‘profit and loss’ conceptualisation of risk. this links with illsley and waller’s (2017, p. 484) study of further education lecturers, where they found “a clear consensus from the participants that the pressure to secure funding is affecting working practices”, something which is echoed strongly by lecturer 3 who states that teaching staff are ‘forced’ to view students harshly. it appeared to be this pressure that sensitised lecturers to risk indicators such as poor performance or low attendance, making the student vulnerable to withdrawal, particularly in the first six weeks “whereby all students who are no longer likely to achieve must be withdrawn if serious financial consequences were to be avoided” (illsley & waller, 2017, p. 480). it is possible that this conflict arises when the individual’s ‘personal’ definition of risk (predominantly associated with ‘external risk behaviours’) collides with the so-called ‘college’ definition of risk (‘internal risk behaviours’ and ‘profit and loss’). prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 77 5.1 vulnerability as a determinant of risk the tension between ‘risk as vulnerability’ and ‘risk as profit and loss’ led staff to identify students as 'at risk' using a pool of specific characteristics relating to their disadvantage, either due to personal or environmental factors. external risk behaviours led to stereotypical views of students sharing similar characteristics or experiencing similar problems. therefore, the duty to identify risk leads to the ‘othering’ of students who were considered ‘vulnerable’. johnson (2005) discusses the power and influence of stereotyping in observing that “stereotypes reflect an illusionary correlation between two unrelated factors, such as being poor and lazy. negative traits are easy to acquire and hard to lose... we tend to see our own behaviour and judgements as common and appropriate, and to view alternative behaviour as uncommon an inappropriate” (p. 525). johnson goes on to explain that this kind of thinking can lead to 'blaming the victim', which happens when people try to attach meanings or causes to events. in the case of 'risk' and student drop-out in further education, staff try to seek explanations external to their locus of control. if the 'risk' is outside of their control, attrition can be justified. the performative nature of the further education system undermines the importance of relationships as transformative, by placing conditions of success or failure onto the teacherstudent relationship. the notion ‘self-responsibility’ linked to the perceptions of risk in this study fuels the individualistic notion that people are to blame for their own circumstances (atkins, 2017). as a result, there was also a sense in the data that the status of 'risk' was transient in nature; that a student could fall (or opt) in or out of the category if they did something to change their behaviour (in relation to attendance or achievement). however, the cause of the risk was often attributed to a fixed part of that student's identity: for example, their socio-economic background or whether they were a care-leaver. atkins & flint, (2015, p. 25) observe that “hegemonic and normative discourses in which young people are variously positioned in discursive practices over which they have no control”. in this case, the discourse of vulnerability has the effect of positioning young people in terms of ‘risk’, which can then follow them throughout their learning journey. according to stephen ball (2005), neoliberal auditing is not a process of ‘de-regulation’ but ‘re-regulation’. in other words, a shift in focus from values to value. he asserts that “the primacy of caring relations in work with pupils and colleagues has no place in the hard world prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 78 of performativity” (ball, 2005, p. 180). in this context, the relationship between the institution and the student is fundamentally changed. this potentially weakens the ties that students have with their educators, which could reduce trust for those who do not have the social or cultural resources they need to navigate this system and may be more likely to fail to achieve. 5.2 subversion for social justice? it is important to note at this stage that the participants in this study were not blind to their obligation to support the vulnerable students under their care. the external risk behaviours described above were taken seriously by all of the participants who felt that risk also served to highlight when urgent action was needed to support students, with the aim of securing their long-term retention and achievement. this was particularly true of the mental health support tutor and the learning support practitioner who it could be argued had the luxury of being able to construct relationships with students outside of the performative environment. in some ways the self-conscious recognition of the tensions between ‘risk as vulnerability’ and ‘risk as profit and loss’ can mediate the potentially damaging effects of ‘being vulnerable’ in this context. this is evident through the subversive narratives demonstrated above by the learning support practitioner and the student services manager. in this sense, notions of profit and loss can be used to motivate staff members to do more to support and retain students who are vulnerable. however, this leverage is also restricted by performative notions of ‘profit and loss’, as it manipulated behaviour towards a selfinterested preoccupation with retention and achievement. further, it is also important to point out that this influence was only effective after the ‘census’ window (illsley & waller, 2017), at which student numbers were centrally audited. as such, the extent to which the social justice concerns of staff could be successfully addressed was shaped by the rigidity of the performative environment. 5.3 limitations given the small scale of this research study, the findings presented here do not seek to generalise the use of the term ‘risk’ to all further education settings, though given the increasing homogeneity of the environment (o’leary & rami, 2017). there are important themes which may be identifiable in similar institutions. further, the rapid pace and change of further education policy likely changes the nature of the ‘risk’ presented and therefore, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 79 how risk is mitigated within institutions. however, the mindful consideration of how various risks may influence student achievement and widening participation is crucial, which is why further study of this phenomenon is advocated. 6. conclusion the research presented here has demonstrated that risk, and its association with students, is problematic given the tensions in the accounts of the term described in this paper. the notion of risk as both an economic and social phenomenon raises significant ethical issues with regards to the inclusion of students in further education. the drive to identify areas of potential profit and loss leads to negative conceptualisations of students who may represent a ‘risk’ to the financial health of the organisation. conflicting accounts of risk make explicit the difficulties presented to staff who work with so-called ‘vulnerable’ students. whilst recognising the wider contextual issues of their lives, staff are also duty-bound to safeguard the college’s interests. whilst awareness of this conflict can, in some cases, lead to subversive practices to support student retention, the notion of vulnerability as undesirable within a performative environment 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(2013). the construction of academic identity in the changes of finnish higher education. studies in higher education, 38(8), 1135–1149. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.833036 46 digital auto-ethnography: interview with self copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 46-72 joanna neil university centre at blackburn college joanna.neil@blackburn.ac.uk abstract this experimental paper, ‘interview with self’, is not so much the findings of a research project, but rather the continuing process of it. it is part of an auto-ethnographic study of the creative making process, presented here in its unedited form as an example of a methodology and as an artefact of practice. the use of digital technologies and platforms for the auto-ethnography created spaces for reflection and alternative ways to observe and document both reflection and artistic production. my relationship to my own making was therefore mediated through technology. this enabled me to distance myself from what i was doing by becoming a spectator and experience a new intimacy with my work through seeing and hearing what usually went unnoticed. 1. introduction 1.1 the challenge of self-observation self-observation is a challenging territory. the ubiquity of the digital, and a society which increasingly captures and shares 24/7, conjures images of narcissism, indulgence, confidence and knowing. here, the current abundance of documented selves on social media, where the selfie represents self-obsession rather than self-observation, the non-reflective constructed self, the self as product and the projection of the self ‘outwards’. in contrast to this, in autoethnography we may encounter a version of the self that is both challenging and illuminating. this methodology encourages experimentation and reflexivity, and embraces uncertainty. the pouting selfie represents how we want the world to see us; it is not reflective of who we really are: it is not reflective at all. it is a constructed self, the self as product, and a projection of the self ‘outwards’. digital auto-ethnography is about looking inwards, a way to make the familiar unfamiliar, a deconstruction rather than a construction of the self and, in this context, it is a way to understand and develop a creative practice. it presents a version of the self that 47 might be uncomfortable or unflattering to share and not always the self at its best. mcniff (2013) asks: how do researchers minimize one-sided self-absorption when personal, often intimate, art making is a core element of research? might standards of usefulness to others assure practical outcomes and complement the subjective aspects of artistic knowing? the research was about me but not just for me: i wanted to use this research to gain insight into the experience of making visual arts and to support my own students with their own practices. i am asking: how can digital technologies empower students with their own reflective practices and transitions from students to practitioners? 1.2 preamble between october 2013 and june 2015 i experimented with using digital auto-ethnography to observe, record and re-observe myself as an artist. digital tools such as a digital voice recorder, go-pro headcam, and private and public digital platforms were used to observe my non-digital arts practice. my identity as researcher, teacher and artist were inextricably linked. a key question i had for this research was how these digital tools and platforms might help me to develop or gain insight into my reflexivity and artistic practice. pink et al (2016, p.13) suggest that ‘ways that digital ethnographers might reflexively engage with their worlds is concerned with asking ourselves precisely those questions about how we produce knowledge’. the research was therefore also an opportunity for me to understand more about what reflection is for arts practitioners, so that i might be able to support the creative arts students i teach more effectively. this paper is an interview that i conducted with myself in late 2016 which includes further discussion in italics. the interview approach was used as a reflexive technique to support the developing case study. 2. interview with self: 12 questions november/december 2016 1. you recorded different aspects of your making. why did you start to do this? i realised when i started to look at various personal statements that i had made about my work, my practice, that i had lost connection with them (these statements). the statements were basically statements that had been carried forward. i had made some observations about what i thought my work was about but, at the same time, it didn’t really mean anything to me, or didn’t feel very current. new statements felt like updating of previous statements – improving the language to describe the same things without questioning whether these descriptions were still relevant, and without reflecting on the work itself.1 it was feeling like this, and also that i wanted to understand more about what was experienced throughout the making process, that led to the idea of recording as much reflection as possible (while experiencing thinking about and making work). this was also to try and experience this as a 1 artistic statements are commonly made to accompany personal profiles and applications for artistic opportunities. the use of statements about my artistic practice is reflected on in full in the blog post ‘the beginning’ october 2013 https://feltlikeit.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-beginning/ (neil, 2013) https://feltlikeit.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-beginning/ 48 student might, to understand what emotions and experiences emerge throughout the process to potentially empathise more and find better ways to teach. i was interested in the reflection: the reflective activity that takes place about, and through, making art. what does reflection look like? how can it be captured? why is it often absent from students’ work in a critical or dialogic form? i was interested in what i might learn from recording what i do and think, and whether anything could be revealed, surprise me, or change my relationship to my work. the statements that are often made about a person’s practice are often so decisive and assured and i thought this is often what students see2. even when we are allowed into the process by an artist it is often seeing the technical side of them making that work or a narrative of how their ideas developed, not always how they reflect on their work, what the making of the work feels like, or how they make sense of what they do immediately, or over time. 2. how important was it to use digital technologies? the technologies were important because i had already been using a blog to document my work and at times used it to reflect on things to do with my research. i wanted the blog to continue as a way to have an audience for my writing and work. i think this helped think about talking to ‘someone’. i had also been using evernote3 and considered this as a private space for documenting thoughts, ideas and links to interesting sources. although i was also making notes in various physical notebooks and documents on the computer, evernote and the blog helped me to keep various bits of writing in one place alongside other digital forms. the use of audio recording became important very early on. i was waiting in the car and wanted to get down some thoughts before i forgot them so used the audio on my phone to record my spoken thoughts. this recording became something that i could listen back to at various points and something that also documented how i was feeling at the time through the pauses and intonation in my voice. i thought of the digital technologies like the go-pro camera as a third eye which would allow me to see again what i had already seen, and to see things that i had not noticed at first. i was not sure if these technologies would reveal anything but having them recording me enabled me to focus on the making, rather than thinking about what i was thinking about or doing. the audio became important: i could explain things in spoken words that i would possibly have written differently. the process of writing slows down thoughts for me where as speaking allows the thoughts to flow, or at least be expressed in a different way. seeing the work in a digital form, whether it was a still photograph or a video recording, reframed the work: it became flat and presented. the video recordings animated and presented the work in a different way again: static imagery came to life through these recordings enabling me to see and reframe from different perspectives. the technology provided a different dimension 2 my own experiences as an art student reinforced this; artists visiting to give a slide show about their work would often present a linear and seamless account of the work. the fear and uncertainty of making work was rarely spoken about. 3 evernote is a commercial digital platform designed for note-taking, organising content and archiving. it enables users to store notes they have created which might include text, webpages and excerpts, photographs, voice memo’s and attachments, these are organized in labelled notebooks. 49 to view the work, a kind of virtual space, and when hosted on the blog, a virtual space within a virtual space. 3. why did you use these particular technologies rather than others? i initially used technology that was easily available and familiar to me so the wordpress blog and evernote, both free, were accessible to me on my computer but also on my mobile phone. the phone was an important portable device and, using the evernote app, i was able to record short spoken thoughts, take images and save them directly to my evernote ‘notebook’. this on-the-go recording was mainly done with evernote and, as a private platform, it created a space where the raw information could go before i decided what to share. although the blog hosted some unedited and raw information, it was only used once i had mentally, and sometimes physically, processed the content. the go-pro head-cam was available to me and although a fairly clumsy third eye, with it fixed on my forehead, it did allow me to record what i was seeing fairly accurately. the video camera was a simple one which enabled me to record the experience of making from multiple angles, some from points of view i would not be able to experience on my own. it was important to me that what i was doing was not about the technology itself, but about what the technology could help me to do more effectively. i had the opportunity to look at other developing technologies, which were designed to collect data, record and be responsive. i also considered technologies that were designed for more covert activities like surveillance and spying. i went as far as trying out google glass and researched into various eye glass technologies thinking that this may be a more accurate way to observe and capture experiences. i also thought that google glass might be a way to engage students in observing and recording their own reflections, although the public image of this type of wearable technology was not always positive4. the decision to not go this way came from considering practicalities, cost, and what was happening with this type of technology at the time (november 2014). the technology did promise a more accurate ‘eye view’ of what you observed and experienced but was limited in terms of the length of recordings that would be possible to make and store on the device. the costs of the technology were prohibitive, and the functionality and reliability of the device was still in the early stages of its development. there were also other wearable technologies being developed as glasses, googles and visors5, mostly for sporting, communications, gaming, and business logistics applications, rather than teaching and learning. i realised what had been important to me when i used the digital technologies was that i could pretty much pick them up and use them straight away, at least with minimal study of instructions. they were also technologies i had, or could get hold of fairly easily, or buy cheaply. with the technology changing so quickly, and the accessibility and creativity of finding technologies to observe and record, i decided to stick to cameras and audio recording devices. the surveillance equipment still interests me, partly because i would like to find a way to observe and record myself 4 the phrase ‘glassholes’ for those early up takers of the google glass technology began to take root fairly quickly https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/28/glassholes/ (lawler 2013) amid concerns of invading privacy and generally looking a bit daft. 5 other products in development at this time were: vuzix m100 smart glasses, epson moverio bt-200 smart glasses which could take still pictures, record and playback video, using voice and gesture controls. all retailed between £700-£1000 but were very new to the market at the time. https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/28/glassholes/ 50 without knowing when i was being recorded or being in control of when i am being recorded. this type of recording might be something i develop through my practice rather than a method for digital auto-ethnography that i use with students. when i started thinking about being unaware of when i might be recorded i remembered something i did when on the 2nd year of my art degree course (1994-05). it was at a time when i was experimenting and just trying stuff out, though i am not sure if it connected to any ideas or work at the time or not. there was a room that could be completely blacked out so i had the room as dark as possible and switched off the lights. as i walked around the space i asked someone to randomly take flash photographs of me. this was not on a digital camera so i imagine i had to wait several days or weeks before i saw them. the digital recording offers immediacy for reflection, that photography, when i was a student didn’t. the images show myself unaware that i would be seen or documented and i am interested in the idea of this as a conscious-free selfie, especially in the context of how selfies, which construct the perfect image of the self, are so prolific on social media. i think the image (figure 1) is also a good metaphor for what i am doing with auto-ethnography; i am capturing moments of stumbling in the dark. figure 1: ‘stumbling in the dark’ (1995) 4. what did you hope to find out? i hoped that in recording and re-seeing my process that i would understand something of my habits and approaches to making work. i wanted to see and understand the experience of making so that i could also reconsider some of my teaching habits. actually, this is a difficult question! i suppose i didn’t know but i hoped something of the different phases of my making process might be revealed to me. i hoped to find out why i did work in the way i did, why i made the decisions i did, and what i was thinking about and feeling at different points. i wondered what my making process looked like, what my thoughts were and how what i was feeling related to decisions about the work i made. i hoped to understand more about reflection, how i reflect, when i reflect and how i use this reflection. i also hoped to make better work; work which had more depth to it, especially having explored possibilities relating to more commercial outcomes i felt that i had lost my way, that teaching had started to distance me from my practice, that being a teacher and artist had made my identity difficult to grasp. i hoped to re-experience something of what it is like to be a student again through feeling completely exposed. 5. what was it like to record yourself in this way? 51 it felt experimental. it was experimental. in some ways it felt like making a piece of artwork. i felt uncomfortable at first, even awkward, and was reminded of what it feels like to play and pretend. pretending or playing at being a researcher, questioning the validity of the research, and being uncertain about what it might mean, or how the research might be useful. because i didn’t know what i was going to find out i didn’t feel particularly confident. i also initially felt quite aware and self-conscious when recording my voice and recording my making. it was interesting having a heightened awareness of the work and myself while it was being made. i felt more connected to what i was doing, or at least in the moment and noticing what i was doing, although i sometimes felt that this caused interference. as i got more used to the recording equipment and techniques i was able to immerse myself in the practice more easily without over-thinking, or trying to resolve, how what i was doing worked as a methodology. the heightened awareness was partly because the recording was not automatic: i instigated when i was being recorded, and how i was being recorded, so this affected my relationship to my making at certain points. the films that were created needed some small amounts of editing because the beginning and endings of the recordings were quite clumsy, so i am wondering now why it was important to me that they became edited films. i felt embarrassed at myself being visible, when i was not particularly ready. i am now aware that this contradicts what i have said earlier about how recording when i am not aware might reveal interesting habits or behaviours. the films were edited to show the making as a process and not what it is like to record yourself. they became art works in a sense (perhaps not enjoyable, or meaningful, outside of the context of documenting a making process), but they became artefacts at least. on some occasions the editing was more intrusive where i might edit together several films taken from different viewpoints at the same time. these became a way to document and reflect on the making but also became quite interesting short films themselves. often the view i had of myself was disembodied: the view i had of myself was of parts of my hands or arms, the sound of my voice, or movement of a body i couldn’t see. when there were recordings of me looking, they were often through other filters like glass cabinets or a side view where i was not appearing to be self-conscious at all. these images of myself showed concentration, me half squinting at my drawing or the object, up close to the drawing, my body poised for drawing, not smiling, but not not-smiling. 6. what did you find out about your practice? i connect to certain things, whether it is an image or an object, and i don’t know why. previously i would have made a statement about how i like to use banal objects in my work to elevate them or find their beauty somehow but, actually, i don’t know why certain things draw me in to draw them. i found myself constructing narratives around the imagery and objects, so there is an aspect of wanting to tell stories or wanting to draw certain shapes, forms or details. the connections or symbolism becomes a reason to look at certain things and draw them. what connects the drawings and responses seems to vary between being on a small-scale or on a larger scale. i made a comparison between the museum setting and the encyclopaedia that i had previously used as a source of inspiration which, in turn, had been something i connected 52 with at a young age: flicking through pages of volumes of the waverly book of knowledge encyclopaedias. my memory of looking at page after page of different sorts of imagery, colour, or black and white, diagrams and graphs, were before i was reading properly, however, i like to think that these visuals formed and informed my desire to select and recreate in different incarnations the things that i am drawn to. the account i would give of my experience was factual but the narrative applied to it was a form of sense-making, or possibly, a constructed and applied narrative. perhaps these are the same thing, perhaps it doesn’t matter. other discoveries related to behaviours that were observable: the go-pro offered a way to document what was seen as a third eye, but also capture the movements of my body. the film of making the first copy of an image from a book recorded when i was looking at the image to be drawn, and when i was looking at the drawing i was making. additionally, i was able to see how where i was looking related to what my hand was doing, whether i was looking at the drawing, visualising the drawing or drawing without looking. a tedious process of looking at the film using film-editing software and slowing down the footage to a 10th of a second enabled me to measure, in time, this co-ordination of eye, hand and memory. although not as accurate as using eye-glass technology, i created a set of data from this observation. examining 1.7 minutes of 15.2 minutes of footage, i was able to find out that 41% of the time in this first 1.7 minutes was spent looking at the image, 45% drawing and 14% visualising (looking at the paper but not making a mark). if i had guessed what proportion of time is spent looking compared to drawing i would probably have said 50:50 so looking at this breakdown did make me think about that time spent between looking and recording and time spent ‘visualising’, staring at the paper, and my drawing and not making a mark. this finding made me think in more depth about what is memorised, the co-ordination of body and mind (my hand was often left making marks as my head moved away), so i found something out about the physicality of my making. seeing a recording, a moving image of a drawing, being created, whether stitched on the sewing machine, or with pen on paper, makes something that becomes static (a 2d drawing on a 2d piece of paper) animated: the lines, shapes and forms move, become movement, and emerge from movement. it is what these movements look like that was revealed to me. i also found out how i make connections as i go along, so there is revisiting and iteration through making connections between things. i felt a sense of securing what my practice was as i progressed, partly because i started to understand how my work was actually about sensemaking and storytelling. there is also sometimes humour in what i do. 7. what did you find out about yourself? although i have always been present in my work in an autobiographical sense, i was also quite hidden or removed. i thought i had been making work that revealed something about myself, but this work has always been quite subtle, anything really revealing or personal was not there. i think this was a sort of passive engagement rather than a conscious attempt to remove myself from the work in some way. i discovered that i think a lot, and that this sometimes gets in the way of making. i become too self-conscious while making work, but also found that i can easily become lost in what i am doing. from looking at recordings i seem 53 confident in what i am doing even though i am feeling unsure and confused at times. i think i do things that i am in the mood to do, that there has to be an emotional connection to the work i am doing and sometimes this is just to create a space for thinking. some of the more repetitive processes like tracing drawings with the sewing machine, essentially the same image with each one taking on its own identity, allowed me to go into a more meditative state. i think this meditative state is important to me and my work, and it is only through recording the making and re-watching the footage that i have seen the connection between what i create and how i create it. repetition and iteration are important through the themes, techniques, processes, and both physical and mental states of my body and mind. i also realised that having a better understanding of my physical self in the work made me want to include myself more physically in future pieces: for the work to become more performative in the future. i also began to realise that as part of my shifting identity of artist, researcher and teacher, that i always consider what i am doing in terms of how it might be useful as an approach for students. i clearly have a desire to make my personal insights and experiences useful for teaching and learning contexts, even when i am immersed in my own work. it also struck me how thinking about teaching and learning contexts in turn provided an additional lens to think about the work i was making. this is possibly where the making-about-making element stemmed from. as well as performing or thinking about my body as part of the work, i also realised that i like writing and that the writing became not just a form of sense-making but, at times, a form of creative expression, a poetry of sorts. theatre and poetry have always been interests of mine, but pushed to the background, now feeling like they have been suppressed from a practice that has only been touching the surface. 8. how has observing yourself in this way helped you? i think that if i had just kept a written journal as a diary of thoughts then i may have explored some of the same things. however, i am not sure i would have read the notes back to myself in the same way, or used the initial notes to construct different piece of writing. by having a variety of observations i was forced to revisit the recordings in different ways. some of this involved editing together material or processing digital files so that they could be included on the blog which meant seeing what was recorded several times. working with this material in a rather technical way provided some distance to it as my involvement in viewing the material was quite functional. deciding how to narrate the content on the blog, which for one project was different stages of the making process, and for another, specific units of time (days of the residency), also required a form of processing and editing. because there was an imagined audience reading and looking at the content, this editing was about making sense to others and sense-making for myself. reflecting on the making process became more than just thinking about what i had done and where i might go next; reflecting became a way for me to interpret, reorder, and develop a dialogue. so, in some ways observing myself in this way enabled many different ways to reflect on the making, my process and myself. also, looking at the making, myself, and pieces of work with different media, provided different ways to view and experience them. drawings became a different sort of image when 54 they were photographed, and they changed again when on a blog, where they might sit next to text or moving imagery. a piece of work looked at in one context or setting was affected by the forms it was presented with and this provided me with a different experience of it. i think some of this helped to distance me from the immediacy of making and helped to make what i was doing unfamiliar. this unfamiliarity was also through seeing bits of me i wasn’t used to seeing: what my face is doing when i am drawing, or what the materials i am using look like as they are making contact with surfaces. this intimacy and close-viewing of materials not only gave me a renewed sense of the materials themselves but also gave me a closeness to the materials, what they look like up close: the textures, absorbency, sound they make, or the flow and relationship between my movement and the material and mark. it is not that i necessarily reflected in depth on these elements but that a heightened sense of awareness was created. 9. has your work changed? at the time of doing the auto-ethnographies it didn't feel like it was making much of a difference to my approach to the subject matter or process as a whole, but one of the things that i found challenging was how the methodology began to influence, or perhaps inspire, the things that i might do. part of this came from being inspired by the different viewpoints i was seeing from, but also how the video recordings were interesting as additional layers to the work. the video recordings, in some cases, became more than pieces of work: they became vehicles to reflect with, rather than stand-alone pieces. i think the research gave me an approach to my work which enabled me to let go of certain habits. because i was trying to observe, and in a way question everything i was doing, i allowed myself to do things without over-thinking what i was doing. this seems like a contradiction, that while being more aware of what i was doing, i was more willing to step outside what was familiar. i became aware of what was familiar and this challenged me. at the time i felt that being a researcher of my practice while doing it often presented a conflict, and i remember at various times thinking that the methodology, the technology in particular, was interfering or even contaminating the work i was making. so there was an element that my work was changing because of the new ways i was looking at it which felt like a process of unpicking and understanding. through this process i became interested in what was being created and the making of the work sort of became its own reflexive methodology. the digital bought something new to my practice and the methodology: it enabled me to slow down my making process, to quite literally slow movements down. the slowing down also gave me a sense of connecting with my work, the process, and myself in new ways, and it is this aspect that i feel has had a lasting impact on me. the work created through the auto-ethnographies was different to previous work, in that i was less focused on the end pieces, and more detached from them as pieces than i have with work in the past. in some ways i felt that i had invested more of myself in these pieces, that they revealed more about me, but i was more happy for them to be shared, and they perhaps revealed more to me about myself than to anyone else. a significant change to my work since stopping the auto-ethnographic projects is that i feel that i have a stronger connection to the way i work, the materials i use, and how i want to become more physically part of my work. 55 the auto-ethnographic methodology has performative elements to it: i became an observed performer even if it was to an audience of one. the work i have made since has explored using the spoken word (scripted), and making-as-performance. this is a huge departure for me, but not a surprising one when i consider my interests in theatre and poetry. the idea that my practice has been interfered with, or contaminated, seems ridiculous to me now and makes me think about how much control i used to want to have with, and over, my work. so letting go has made me feel closer to my practice which, in turn, has changed how i perceive myself as an artist, researcher and teacher. i am now more present in my work. 10. is there anything else that has changed? i think my perception of myself has changed in that i feel empowered by my roles or identities as an artist, educator and researcher rather than compromised, particularly the dual identity of teacher and artist. i think this has stemmed from a perception that you can’t be serious about making artwork unless you are earning a main living from it. i don’t think being an artist has much to do with that; rather, it is about how you situate yourself, and make sense of the different roles or identities you might have. how i might write about my practice has changed and i am less concerned with pinning it down, or defining exactly what it is about. it continues to be an emerging thing and, as soon as i feel i can pin it down, i might be tempted to do more digital auto-ethnography. i want to feel surprised by what i do. some of the challenges i have previously had relate to discipline identity. starting out as a painter who did as much photography, print, installation, and 3d work, as painting, my practice has never been defined by the materials or techniques that i use. for a while i experimented a lot with felt fibre and i began to identify my work with fine art textiles and craft. i have always wrestled with making what i want to make and what i think others would want to buy, and after a few years, although enjoying some of the more commercially driven making, happily returned to making for myself. so i feel i have come full circle and consider myself an artist who works interchangeably with materials, techniques, processes for ideas and expressing myself because i have something to share or say. although i have previously used video and sound, this was at a time when i was experimenting at art school, so what has changed recently is a desire to allow more experimental ways of working back in to my practice. although not explicitly focused on teaching in the classroom, the experience i have had, has changed how i think about my relationship to my students. the aim of the research was to explore something for myself and enable students to do the same as a pedagogical approach. however, the changes to my teaching have gone beyond that. my experiences of using different ways to record myself has resulted in different ways of making work. for example, recording spoken descriptions of things i want to draw before drawing them. this approach became an idea for a series of workshops where participants used this technique to make work, and explore drawing, as a verbally reflective activity. having recorded tutorials with students, and then shared them with the students, my approach to tutorials and providing feedback has also changed. the tutorials have become more like conversations where the student speaks more than i do. in fact, tutorials have started to feel more like informal 56 interviews where i am asking questions as a way to develop feedback rather than give a critique or directive. 11. will you continue to use these approaches in the future? i can imagine using the methodology of auto-ethnography as part of my practice but not necessarily to observe my practice for continued research purposes. the process has triggered something, and i feel sent me on a different trajectory which i can explore for a while. i feel that if and when i become too comfortable with what i am doing then i might attempt to make the familiar unfamiliar again. i feel at the moment that i am open to changes that are happening, and that it is a changing practice. in terms of how i might use these approaches with others i think there is definitely mileage in unpicking art and design pedagogy and also in looking at other contexts for these approaches, for example, the tutorial as recorded interview or feedback as a podcast or film. blogs will continue to be important and have been a great vehicle for exploring different methods of reflecting, however, there are often already ingrained approaches students have with using social media, and these are often not very reflective. sharing work on facebook and responding to likes becomes quite passive and potentially directive. blogs also can become static repositories rather than environments for deep or dialogic reflection. i am also interested in trying other ways to observe and document making and thinking. as touched on earlier, there is potential in exploring the use of surveillance tools for my own reflection, or making work specifically to reflect with. creating slow motion recordings visually slowed down an action which gave me an interesting ‘space’ to reflect in. there is also potential to explore some of these approaches for students with disabilities. many people i have spoken to about the work i am doing drew my attention to the benefits of some of these approaches for dyslexia, memory problems, sight impairment and emotional wellbeing. 12. how important was sharing the recordings? sharing was vital to me developing a sense of other or audience, even though i was aware that this was a form of pretence, pretending there is someone else reading, watching or listening. it also gave the process a purpose: i was observing and making for someone else. there were other forms of sharing that i did at various stages of the projects, which at times was difficult because i didn’t start the research with a fully formed idea of what i was doing and why. this emergent nature of the work was supported by talking at conferences, lectures to students and, of course, discussing ideas with colleagues, friends and supervisors. i often thought of my sharing, particularly at conferences and on the blog as a selfish sharing, that it was more for me and my benefit than for other people. i think this was at a stage when i was using the sharing to make sense of something, and the information was not fully formed; it was fragmented and possibly quite confusing. the most difficult content to share was probably the sound recordings because my uncertainty and vulnerability was exposed the most with these. the visual recording only ever showed parts of me, bits of arms, hands, feet, or eyes squinting. they were unflattering, but probably showed a confidence (not felt) rather than a vulnerability. 57 3. postscript this postscript serves as a reflection on the digital auto-ethnographic methodology, my findings and where, as an approach, it might be situated. the process of digitally documenting artistic practice, as empirical as this might be, provides lenses rather than truths. in the context of life histories and autobiographies sandino (2007, p.191) describes this type of documentation as ‘deeply mediated texts that…do not transparently reflect their authors’ intentions… nor construct a unified subject’. however, they are useful in providing a ‘rich text of the ongoing strategies of meaning-making captured in the moment of the dialogic encounter of the recording’, not offering ‘truths’ but ‘an opportunity to hear the self in the process of becoming through reflective narration’ (sandino, 2007, p.198). if, as sandino says, ‘we can unravel the singular and complex ways in which artists’ identities are created and recreated, and understand how artists’ stories of process are imbricated in the larger project of identity formation’ (2007, p.198), this is potentially useful, not only for the established artist, but also undergraduate students making their own transition through their practices. fortnum and smith (2007), in their exploration of the challenges artists face when documenting their practices, conclude that although technology has made it easier to document practice, and that we are more used to being observed, this does not necessarily mean that the creative process has been ‘demystified’. fortnum and smith (2007) refer to mey’s (2007) point from her symposium paper abstract that ‘[the] …process of making art and their documentation influence each other’. for me the risk of this ‘influence’ is more interesting than remaining in the dark and allows me to question my understood ‘repertoire’, what schön (1983) refers to as something the practitioner can draw upon when faced with something new. the relationship the artist has between their thinking and making is complex but there is an opportunity to explore this pedagogically. this digital auto-ethnography was for my own personal development as an artist, and to form a series of vignettes of students as an arts pedagogical enquiry. the research project included thirteen students across year groups from several art and design disciplines. while there is not room here to discuss this aspect of the project in any depth, the approach enabled the students to take ownership of their own creative making processes and critically reflect on these experiences. beyond the case studies, students on year two of a b.a. (hons) fine art programme were given a research project brief, framed as ‘tactics for not knowing’ taken from cocker’s (2013) essay. knowing and being able to situate one’s arts practice is a critical part of artistic development and assessment. these periods of uncertainty, of ‘not knowing’ are described by cocker (2013, p.126) as ‘paralysing’ and ‘prohibitive’ and that they can ‘usher in the feelings of anxiety and embarrassment, the debilitating sense of being at a loss or lost, unable to see a way out or forward’. however, like cocker, i find myself reinvigorated by not knowing, on the edge of discovering something, ‘not knowing is an active space within practice, wherein an artist hopes for an encounter with something new or unfamiliar, unrecognisable’ (cocker, 2013, p.126). the students were challenged to find research approaches that helped them to become strangers to their practices, to become outsiders looking in, and to make the familiar unfamiliar. some students recorded different aspects of their making and thinking using auto-ethnographic techniques, some recorded conversations 58 with each other. some students have written questions to interview themselves. they were enabled to take this critical approach, to remove the need for a teacher role in this critique, and to develop their reflective practices. references cocker, e. (2013) tactics for not knowing preparing for the unexpected in fortnum, r., and fisher, e. eds. (2013) on not knowing how artists think kettles yard black dog publishing fortnum, r. and smith, c. (2007), ‘the problem of documenting, fine art practices and processes’ journal of visual arts practice 6: 3, pp. 167–174, doi: 10.1386/jvap.6.3.167/2 lawler, r. (2013) ‘get ready for even more google glasshole sightings’, techcrunch. 23 january 2013. available from: https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/28/glassholes/ mcniff, s. (2013) art as research, opportunities and challenges, intellect bristol. neil, j. (2013) ‘the beginning’, blog entry posted 18 october 2013. available from: https://feltlikeit.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-beginning/ pink, s., horst, heather., postill, j., hjorth, l., lewis, t., and tacchi, j. (2016) digital ethnography: principles and practice. london: sage publications sandino, l (2007) relating process: accounts of influence in the life history interview, journal of visual art practice, 6:3, 191-199 schön, d. a. (1983). the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. new york: basic books links to the digital auto-ethnography projects undertaken between 2013 and 2017 ‘submerged’ october 2013 – february 2014 https://feltlikeit.wordpress.com/category/submerged/page/2/ ‘drawn together: a conversation with the collection’ october 2014-may 2015 https://drawnconversation.wordpress.com/ ‘seeing practice’ research project with students 2015-2017 https://seeingpracticeblog.wordpress.com/ 182 drama, creativity, and critical pedagogy copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 182-194 helen eadon-sinkinson university centre at blackburn college helen.eadon@blackburn.ac.uk abstract this article focuses on the work of paulo freire and the social theory encapsulated within ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ (1996) as applied to a professional educational context; a year 11 gcse drama class in preparation for their final assessment piece which was being moderated by an aqa assessor. drama is a subject which allows for the key concepts of freire’s theory to be explored due its creative nature. there is an explanation of how this theory has been applied in a professional context whilst drawing on the work of boal (1992) and nicholson (2006). 1. introduction 1.1 drama, creativity, and critical pedagogy this paper was written in response to working with a group of gcse drama students within a secondary school in the north west of lancashire as they prepared for their final practical assessment. they had devised a thematic piece incorporating selected poems from william blake’s songs of innocence and experience (1789 [1990]), which was filmed and then viewed to help this reflection. this choice came about through a previous session about situations of vulnerability that the students had found themselves in. they felt that this would be a good basis on which to devise their final piece as it would be something that they could relate to. boal (1982) forms the argument that within traditional theatre, there is a lack of emotional participation in the audience as they do not have the chance to express their feelings and beliefs, whereas within theatre of the oppressed, there is the need for a unity between the audience and the actors, which allows for a more liberating experience, as the audience are allowed to participate; they are given a voice and are encouraged to change the performance. as boal (1982: p.30) explains ‘the theatre of the oppressed is theatre in this most archaic application of the word. in this usage, all human beings are actors (they act!) and spectators (they observe!)’. 183 boal based his theatre on the work of freire (1987; 1996) in a move towards a critical form of pedagogy generated through performance. boal (1992) sees theatre as a way of implementing social change amongst groups of people, as it is a form of knowledge which can be used as a means of transforming society. through drama, theatre groups or indeed individuals, can build and create a future, rather than just accepting domination. in a similar way to freire’s need for dialogue, boal attempts to break down the divisions between the passive audience (the spectator) and the performers (the actor); this generates the term ‘spect-actor.’ boal (1992: p.26) explains: [in] its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings – and not by animals – to observe themselves in action. humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. they can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow. this is why humans are able to identify (themselves and others) and not merely to recognise. 1.2 emancipatory theatre here i refer to nicholson (2006), a practitioner whose work i have come to understand and relate to my own practice over the past few years and who is keen to advocate the work of freire and boal. nicholson (2006, p.141) states that, ‘…the immediate impact of a project of applied theatre may be measurable’. this suggests that there could be emancipatory benefits for the group as they prepare for their moderation. without our realising, the devised performance has spontaneously become a piece of applied theatre. the term emancipatory is not used here to mean that the students are from war torn countries fighting for everyday survival, but rather that they are facing challenges in their lives that are affecting them. previous research from nicholson (2006) suggests that there is a connection between applied drama and self-confidence, and i was keen to relate this to the liberatory aspect fostered amongst the student group. one of the most common aims and expected outcomes for those who engage with drama as a process is to increase confidence. participants do frequently believe that their confidence was indeed boosted as a result of engagement in that process, which has enabled them to explore aspects of the self through the mask of the other. following freire’s beliefs, at the start of the creation of this piece of theatre i had felt the need to intervene to an extent, yet at the same time i wanted the students to take ownership of the piece and exert their own choices as much as possible. ranciere (1999) describes this process as ‘subjectification.’ this subjectification is produced through a collection of actions by a group of people allowing for an experience to be created and identity formed as part of the reconfiguration of their field of experience. i believe that a form of subjectification was being experienced within the drama space through the students’ actions and words. they were drawing on their own personal experiences in order to create a piece of theatre. the nature of drama as a subject produces the need for the vocalisation of thoughts which are turned into performance but, to an extent, within the school environment there can be a hidden agenda. in this case, it was my need to prepare the students for a standard in order for them to meet the requirements of the exam specification and ultimately pass their gcse. 184 freire (1996) describes the students as becoming ‘containers’ in which i, as their teacher, was ready to fill the students with the contents of my own narrative. i was aware that this narration could become ‘detached from reality,’ which i did not want to happen and yet i knew that the students had targets to meet. however, through taking a step back and allowing the students to present their problems through drama, i became their student as i started to learn what they wanted their audience to feel and understand. as freire (1996) advises, within the drama space the teacher must be united with, not against the oppressed. through my participation in drama activities relating to devised performance, such as ‘hot seating’ and ‘thought alleys’, the division between teacher and student became blurred and i was able to understand the group’s situation through the initiated dialogues that were beginning to occur. within the drama space there were, ‘acts of cognition, not transferals of information’ occurring along with a form of ‘authentic liberation,’ (freire, 1996, p.60). this was evident in the way that i observed the group working together. for example, i was aware that a particular student, who had previously appeared to be reluctant to join-in and contribute to his group, was now taking more responsibility and was giving direction to the piece successfully. this particular piece was about relationships with parents and he had started to draw on his own experience of parental relationships in order to create a believable dialogue. 2. creating an understanding of the other initially, the students decided that they would set their piece in a classroom and through performances of duologues and monologues, hoped that this would highlight different situations that young people may be affected by; for example, eating disorders and family problems. the fact that the students decided to set their piece in a classroom made me begin to wonder if they visualised it as their metaphorical oppressor. this view was strengthened further when they decided that they wanted to record a teacher giving instructions so that they could use it in their performance. it was interesting to note that they did not ask me to do it but, instead, asked another teacher to provide their voice. as a piece of theatre, this created a good effect but also from an emancipatory exploration, it made me question the methods of teaching being employed. i wondered if it was a subconscious decision and if they did actually view teachers as being oppressive, rather than working with them. when freire (1996) refers to the oppressed, he was describing disenfranchised people situated within spaces of civil unrest, whereas i am referring to a group of young people living in a stable society. i am aware that the context is different but, when describing and talking about the students’ problems, it became evident to me that they too felt oppressed about the different situations that they were finding themselves in. i could have chosen a different term to reflect the students’ position; however, i felt that the word oppressed was transferable to this particular situation albeit on a different level to freire’s description. the students also selected poems from william blake’s songs of innocence and experience (1789 [1990]) to match their particular problem. for example, one group, who were looking at sibling rivalry, chose the poem my pretty rose tree, as they felt that this stanza reflected the feelings of jealousy between the siblings: 185 ‘then i went to my pretty rose tree, to tend her by day and by night; but my rose turned away with jealousy, and her thorns were my only delight.’ (blake, 1789 [1990], p.41) the student, who recited this stanza, did so after an argument with her sister to highlight the fact that she was jealous of her sister’s good looks and intelligence. i felt that through the tone of her voice, the student’s feelings were conveyed effectively. another student chose to use the following stanza from ‘the sick rose’, to help convey his feelings for his first love: ‘has found out thy bed of crimson joy, and his dark secret love does thy life destroy.’ (blake, 1789 [1990], p.63) again, i observed his body language, (he appeared to look sad as he looked down and drooped his shoulders), and vocal delivery, (this was modulated with a downwards inflection.) these particular examples may not be interpreted in the way that blake wanted us to understand them but they resonated with the students and therefore were deemed as an appropriate choice to be used in the performance. although the group had originally scripted their dialogues, throughout rehearsal there seemed to be a move away from this sense of formality and the groups started to improvise their spoken words. i observed spontaneous scenes being created after discussions on their chosen topic. i believe that this was the students’ way of vocalising their feelings and as freire (1998, p.15) puts it, ‘each individual wins back the right to say his or her own word, to name the world’. i also noticed that two students had changed the theme that they wanted to act out. again, i viewed this as a move towards applied theatre, even becoming reminiscent of theatre of the oppressed. for example, i observed that whilst they had been discussing a particular topic, other related themes had branched out from these dialogues and the students had decided to base their scenes around those instead, as it was something that they all could relate to. the students had been given a choice between following the prescribed scripts, or using improvisation, between being spectators or actors, and between speaking out or being silent. 3. theatre for change boal (1992, p.31), when describing the powerful nature of theatre, echoes freire when he explains ‘theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society’. this would suggest that theatre can help groups of people help build a future, rather than just waiting for change. in reflection on my own practice, i observed that, through the use of drama, the students were becoming aware of their own situations so were able to talk about how they could externalise their feelings. boal’s description is reminiscent of freire’s 186 need for dialogue as a means of transforming the individual, within which dialogue must engage critical thinking as a means of generating critical thought as, ‘…without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education.’ (friere, 1998, p.74). regarding theatre, this would suggest that the spontaneity of improvisation would allow the participants (students) to explore their problem rather than simply remember and reproduce written words. boal’s work is also rooted in liberation theory. shor and freire (1987) discuss liberatory and transformational education within schools and explain how important it is to understand the students that you are working with; they talk of researching the words of the students in order to understand their thoughts and to come to understand what they what they want and how they want to live. this is seen as a privileged place to be in in order to access their consciousness. a level of accessibility should therefore be created within the space of applied drama. shor and freire (1987), in their commitment to the dialogical, explain that if we are to begin to try and understand what is happening with our students’ development, there is the utmost need for us, as teachers, to interact in a way that promotes the individual’s own way of communication, rather than teaching by rote. if we, as teachers, cannot interact with our students and speak to them in authentic language, then frustration is created because we are unable to start to assess their themes and levels of development. once we can teach and learn in a transformational way, then learning may become reflexive. shor and freire (1987, p.10) explain: ‘...the dominant ideology ‘lives’ inside us and also controls society outside. therefore if this domination was definitive, there could be no possibility of social transformation. however transformation is possible because consciousness ‘is not a mirror of reality, not a mere reflection but is reflexive and reflective of reality.’ it could therefore be possible to claim that the drama teacher and participants are capable of creating this transformative and reflexive learning, especially if they are creating work that the students genuinely have an interest in and if they want their voices to be heard. the drama space becomes reminiscent of this, in the way that we often pretend to be other people and try to understand other people’s thoughts and processes. i believe that a piece of applied drama was happening within the process of creating a piece of theatre for the drama moderation. the group was identifying problems within their own situations and was using drama methods to bring them to life on the stage. this is reflective of boal’s theatre of the oppressed, as the drama that the students were creating was crossing from fiction into reality and becoming integrated into their lives thereby fostering a sense of empathy. performance of this nature could also be seen in everyday situations and nicholson (2006) pushes this concept further by explaining how we are affected by soap operas in a similar way; she describes how people react to characters in soap-operas as if they were actual people and this can sometimes cause confusion. 187 4. perceiving the reality of oppression: final reflections although this particular performance was not an attempt to resolve the groups’ problems, it was acting as a vehicle for them to identify and vocalise, through dialogue and performance, their thoughts and feelings. due to ethical constrictions i am, quite rightly, unable to disclose too much information on any particular individual, but i am able to reveal the fact that at times there were some spontaneous breakthroughs within the group, when they had felt particularly emotional about the scene that they were working on. for example, one student had chosen a song to play during her performance that she felt reflected her feelings. when she began to speak her words and the song was played for the first time, she became overwhelmed and the whole group suddenly became aware of how she was feeling about her situation and reacted by consoling her and helping her through the scene. she had gone from standing on her own, speaking her inner monologue to breaking down barriers within the group. as freire (1998, p.30) illustrates, ‘conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided’. the group was as freire (1998, p31) puts it, ‘…perceiving the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform’. the transformation within the group was even more apparent when it came to the actual day of the moderation performance as tensions were running high and there had been external issues with a few students in the group. this, in fact, resulted in a better visual performance and also allowed the students to draw further on their emotions. for example, the students were able to draw on the feelings that they were experiencing about being assessed and to apply them to their individual performance. after the actual moderation performance, the assessor commented on how creative the group was and that they had given a natural and believable performance (which incidentally was a marking level on the syllabus). nicholson (2006) describes how empathy can influence the emotional condition of an audience. i believe that this is what happened during the moderation. i personally felt emotionally moved by the performance as i was aware of how far the students had come in their way of telling their truths. nicholson’s beliefs would suggest that drama can be used as a way of understanding each other and creating social change. nicholson (2006), also states that through creative media such as drama, lasting social change is possible. i knew that a form of change had occurred within the group because they were displaying natural reactions through their performance to the problems that they were facing. therefore, they were convincing, because the students’ words that were being spoken were being understood as truth. to reiterate freire (1998, p.77) ‘we must realize that their view of the world, manifested variously in their action, reflects their situation in the world’. references bingham, c. & biesta, g.j.j. with jacques rancière (2010). jacques rancière: education, truth, emancipation. london/new york: continuum. 188 blake, w. (1789 [1990]) songs of innocence and of experience. oup: oxford; undated edition. boal, a. (1992). games for actors and nonactors. london: routledge. freire, p & shor, i.(1987). a pedagogy for liberation: dialogues on transforming education (critical studies in education and culture). greenwood press. freire, p. (1996). pedagogy of the oppressed. england: penguin education. nicholson, h. (2006). drama for change? prove it! impact. research in drama education, pp. 139-155. ranciere, j. (1999). dis-agreement: politics and philosophy. minneapolis: university of minnesota. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 1 editorial: devaluing the individual copyright © 2017-2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 1 (2): pp. 1-7 david allan edge hill university david.allan@edgehill.ac.uk 1. devaluing the individual 1.1 introduction welcome to this special issue of prism on values in education. the theme of values is greatly significant for the world of education but there are many facets that can be unpicked. the theme for this issue, then, is intentionally broad and encourages diverse perspectives on values, as well as various explorations of the wider interpretations of the base word ‘value.’ indeed, this editorial positions values from the perspectives of those marginalised by their educational experiences, thus focussing on the devaluing of the individual. i shall give an overview of what is contained in this issue a little later but for now i would like to discuss the societal implications of having a system that discards the values of those who do not adhere to the established norms. 1.2 disaffection with learning compulsory education in england has long been identified as problematic for some young people. for instance, duncan (2013, p. 29) suggests that schools can be ‘particularly oppressive institutions that create the conditions that make their children the unhappiest amongst the industrialized nations, generating precisely the disaffection with schooling that they then criticize and punish.’ indeed, the literature is replete with studies on disengagement, disaffection and other concepts and behaviours that represent resistance to prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 2 the apparent structural impositions of our education system in england (allan and duckworth, 2018; allan, 2015; hall and raffo, 2004; kinder et al., 1999; lumby, 2012). whilst compulsory schooling provides much fulfilment for the majority (keys, 2006), the corollary of such a system is the creation of cultural norms, whereupon those who fail to conform or fit in are castigated and alienated, and often allocated to alternative learning programmes to address their recalcitrance as schools adopt a default position of righteousness (harber, 2008). some control is arguably necessary, of course, as schools help to establish parameters that replicate society, which is full of restrictions (although the inverse is also often evident where socio-political circumstances dictate the behaviours of individuals in school), but this becomes problematic when it impinges on individual values. a lack of fulfilment with the education system can lead to disaffection and it is usually at the point in which this becomes active disengagement that it is identified. disaffection may be ‘characterised as a rejection of the values and cultures of dominant institutions’ (ferguson, 2004, p. 292); however, this is only half the picture because those ‘dominant institutions’ also often reject the values of individuals who do not exhibit an allegiance to their establishment and its rules. as such, schools are representative of the larger problem, wherein education is heavily led through a top-down implementation process. in this way, it is government policy that mostly informs, or at least significantly influences, practice. thus, whilst there is an element of ‘resistance’ or ‘autonomy’ evident at the grassroots level, policy appeasement is purported to be a necessity. the national curriculum is designed to inform schools of the values that are deemed necessary for transmission. however, such a system can favour certain individuals – for example, many middle-class students – as its aim is often the reproduction of human constructs such as capital and class. as such, ‘agents adjust their expectations with regard to the capital they are likely to attain in terms of the ‘practical’ limitations imposed upon them by their place in the field’ (webb, schirato and danaher, 2014, p. 23). for many, this process of enculturation results in casualties – those who become marginalised by both society and the education system (allan, 2016) – and attempts to restore this power differential can be seen in students’ so-called recalcitrance, subsequently resulting in teachers aiming to restore conformity by getting the buggers to behave (to borrow a phrase from sue cowley). prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 3 1.3 what price value? according to parks and guay (2009, p. 676), ‘values are ordered by importance, such that one will tend to act according to the more important value when two values are in conflict’. as such, if a student values peer relationships more than educational accomplishments then they will be inclined to make those relationships work, even if this is to the detriment of their education. peer relationships are prioritised because they present opportunities for community networking and, subsequently, the acquisition of social capital. the perceived failure of the school can then generate dissatisfaction and frustration, resulting in disaffection with learning, where learning, education, and schooling are all conceptualised interchangeably. some students who become disaffected with learning will regain their control through disengaging from the system, but this is often temporary and usually leads to poor outcomes, such as a lack of education and progression opportunities and probable neet (not in education, employment or training) status, where disempowerment returns: default societal position 1, non-conforming and disruptive kid 0. what is valued is an education system that enables academic progression – gcse, a level, degree and so on – and the reproduction of sociocultural values that carry capital, whereupon the symbolic domination of those students who exhibit the inability to compete results in the reproduction of their oppression (bourdieu and passerson, 2000). 1.4 setting the bar as a result of such reproduction, the linear educational route identified above has become the ‘gold standard’ and other forms of learning, such as vocational or technical, have become victim to elitist thinking and the reaffirmation of what constitutes cultural capital. thus, whilst attempts to establish parity of esteem between academic and vocational learning have been myriad, progress remains incredibly slow. indeed, many students who become disaffected are often shoehorned onto vocational learning programmes and whilst there are many success stories (allan, 2014; hall and raffo, 2004), it is perhaps the original intention, as deuchar and graham (2012, pp. 4-5) point out, that needs to be challenged: prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 4 popular discourse about these students is that they come from families that do not value education and who do not know how to discipline their children, that these students are too dangerous to have in schools and, through their disruption of others and disrespect for authority, have effectively denied themselves the right to an education. such individuals are often perceived to be non-academic or, more directly, of lesser intelligence. phrases such as, ‘he’s good with his hands’ perpetuate this perception (along with ridiculous notions such as kinaesthetic learning style) and many are reassured with the resultant misconception that these are ‘naughty’ kids because they cannot cope with the heavy academic demands. in reality, the reasons for disaffection and disengagement are many and situations are highly detailed because individuals are not robots but lead complex (and often complicated) lives. some students have difficulty conforming due to the disparity between what they value and the compulsory expectations of school, resulting in multiple values that are misaligned. consequently, the school is perceived to be in conflict with the students’ social experiences. this is one reason why some off-site learning environments are rated so highly. for many, such environments that align with students’ values, and connect with their milieu, can impact positively on disaffection (allan and duckworth 2018). thus, values are an important consideration for the inclusion of students whose cultural capital differs to that of the education system, such as the favouring of the social capital available in the community. indeed, it is not unusual for students to experience cognitive dissonance, where they are given the message that education will lead to financial success and societal status yet prestige in the community from ‘non-conforming friends’ holds greater appeal. in this way, there is often a trade-off of cultural capital for social capital. to add to this, a major component of this dissonance is that the very professionals promoting this message are often highly devalued by society and metaphorically crushed in their profession. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 5 1.5 conclusion in sum, i would reject the suggestion that schools never provide fun and interesting environments in which to learn, or that they always fail to develop independent thinkers and autonomous learners; rather, the values we see connected to the compulsory schooling system can result in tension for those whose values are not aligned with such structural practices and who resist the compulsion to adapt their values. although there are valid concerns with the current education system in england, on balance it needs to be noted that it does provide a valuable experience for the majority of children and young people (keys, 2006). many students see the merit of learning, and even embrace a system that can provide lifeand career-progressing opportunities. indeed, as graham et al. (2015, p. 237) inform us, even the so-called ‘‘ignorant yobs’ value education and know what it is for [and] have aspirations for a secure, productive and fulfilled life’. however, no system is infallible, so i end this argument with the words of carlo raffo who sums up the need to value the individual: schools need to be more reflective about how the wider socio-cultural lifeworlds of young people, and particularly the various networks that make up those lifeworlds, impact on the individual agency of young people. by understanding how and why informal practical knowledge, value introjections and social relations develop for young people and how these then enable levels of social capital to be enhanced, schools may be better placed to develop curricula and support systems, including careers, that really meet their needs as opposed to attempting to re-engage them in standardised mainstream provision which rarely reflects fully the socio-cultural diversity of these young people (raffo 2003, p. 85). 2. in this issue the potentially subversive effects of consumerism in higher education forms the focus for our first article, with craig hammond drawing on the work of roland barthes and guy debord to problematise current pedagogical values and strategies. david woof explores some of the value-laden difficulties of designing and delivering a curriculum for design and technology. in particular, he discusses the values and attributes of this subject from the perspectives of prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 6 experienced practitioners in the field, identifying dissonance in the curricular positioning of the subject within the national curriculum. alison hardy’s article examines the potentially multiple values associated with school subjects. in this, she proposes a framework for exploring and defining the value of a school subject. the attribution of individual values is captured and analysed through the utilisation of this framework, resulting in the generation of subject beneficiaries. as a subject, design and technology is valued in terms of its financial return for society, measured through specific progression opportunities such as employment. an interesting think piece from graham hallett discusses teachers’ values and the ascribed value of teachers, where initial teacher education is seen to attempt to standardise performance yet fail in acknowledging the wider remit of individual developments and personal values. the implications for this can be seen in the perception of some students as economic units, whose performance outcomes become mere measurable contributions to the financial status of the country. we also have two book reviews in this issue. the first, by paul reynolds, discusses interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: a critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity by bhaskar, danermark and price. this book builds on bhaskar's lectures and applies an interdisciplinary approach to health and well-being as a means of extending criticality and analysis. our final book review sees david hayes tackle criminology by case et al., a textbook aimed at students of criminology. this book guides the reader through the student experience and provides a user-friendly approach to studying in this area. i hope that you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it inspirational for your own work and/or thinking. for those of you who feel compelled to debate with or against any of these articles, there will be opportunities in future issues of prism for you to contribute. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 7 references allan d. and duckworth, v. (2018). voices of disaffection: disengaged and disruptive youths or agents of change and self-empowerment? british journal of special education. doi.org/10.1111/14678578.12201. allan, d. (2016). casualties of education: pressures, privil eges and performativity in compulsory schooling in england . saarbrücken, germany: lamb ert academi c publishing. allan, d. (2015). mediated disaffection and reconfigured subjectivities: the impact of a vocational learning environment on the re-engagement of 14–16-year-olds. international journal on school disaffection 11 (2) 45–65. allan, d. (2014). dealing with disaffection: the influence of work-based learning on 14–16-year-old students’ attitudes to school. empirical research in vocational education and training 6 (10) pp.1–18. bourdieu, p. and passeron, j.c. (2000). reproduction in education, society and culture. london: sage. deuchar, r. and graham, l.j. (2012). editorial: on school disaffection in ‘new times’: hard-nosed policies, inflexible institutions and bruised young people. international journal on school disaffection 9 (1) pp.3–6. duncan, n. (2013). “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next.” compulsion, compression, control, and competition in secondary schooling. international journal on school disaffection 10 (1) pp.29–45. ferguson, r. (2004). discourse of exclusion: reconceptualising participation amongst young people. journal of social policy 33 (2) pp.289–320. graham, l.j., bergen, p.v. and sweller, n. (2015) ‘to educate you to be smart’: disaffected students and the purpose of school in the (not so clever) ‘lucky country.’ journal of education policy 30 (2) pp. 237– 257. doi:10.1080/02680939.2014.953596. hall, d. and raffo, c. (2004). re-engaging 14-16-year-olds with their schooling through work-related learning. journal of vocational education and training 56 (1), pp.69–80. harber, c. (2008). perpetrating disaffection: schooling as an international problem. educational studies 34 (5) pp. 457–467. keys, w. (2006). student choices and values in england. european journal of education 41 (1) pp.85–96. kinder, k., kendall, s., haley, k. and atkinson, m. (1999). disaffection talks: a report for the merseyside learning partnership inter agency development programme. slough: national foundation for educational research. lumby, j. (2012). disengaged and disaffected young people: surviving the system. british educational research journal 38 (2) pp.261–279. parks, l. and guay, r.p. (2009). personality, values, and motivation. personality and individual differences 47 (7) pp.675–684. raffo, c. (2003). disaffected young people and the work-related curriculum at key stage 4: issues of social capital development and learning as a form of cultural practice. journal of education and work, 16 (1) pp.69–86. webb, j., schirato, t. and danaher, g. (2014). understanding bourdieu. london: sage. prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401213 41 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 can graphical feedback from a ‘rainbow diagram’ help students reflect on the coherence of their academic writing? stephen foster,1 denise whitelock,2 simon cross,3 and karen kear,4 1 institute of educational technology (iet), the open university, (stephen.foster@open.ac.uk) 2 institute of educational technology (iet), the open university, (denise.whitelock@open.ac.uk) 3 institute of educational technology (iet), the open university, (simon.j.cross@open.ac.uk) 4 faculty of science, technology, engineering and maths (stem), the open university (karen.kear@open.ac.uk) received: 14/11/2020 accepted for publication: 14/06/2021 published: 03/11/2021 abstract openessayist is an automated writing evaluation system (awe) designed to provide immediate textual and graphical feedback to students to help them improve their academic writing. one of the graphical visualisations as part of openessayist, (named a ‘rainbow diagram’), illustrates how well the key concepts within the writing are connected. the rainbow diagram element has been subjected to research by whitelock et al., (2014), who determined that participants could identify patterns across the diagrams, identifications which corresponded to essays awarded low-grade or highgrade marks by tutors. the research reported as part of this paper is a follow-on study, developed to determine how participants might use the rainbow diagram to improve academic writing. thirteen (n=13) phd students were interviewed face-to-face whilst an eye-tracker recorded their gaze on a rainbow diagram produced from an example of their own writing. the current work confirms that students can use rainbow diagrams to identify content that corresponds to high-grade and low-grade work in essay writing. building on whitelock’s research, the study also shows that the rainbow diagram can be used further, to enable students to understand coherence and structure within academic writing, and to facilitate reflection on what actions should be taken to improve their writing. keywords: automated writing evaluation, openessayist, rainbow diagram, student academic writing, writing skills 1. introduction academic writing can be challenging as it involves the development of ideas and the translation of those ideas into text, in ways which conform to the style and convention of a student’s subject area (torrance et al., 1994). related to this, students require support to improve academic writing skills; furthermore, surveys https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401213 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:stephen.foster@open.ac.uk mailto:denise.whitelock@open.ac.uk mailto:simon.j.cross@open.ac.uk mailto:karen.kear@open.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9897-4975 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8741-8503 prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 42 4(1) often express student dissatisfaction with the type of assignment feedback that they receive (nicol, 2010). however, the changed economies of scale within higher education, due to increased student numbers, mean that tutors are generally unlikely to have contact time available to navigate and respond to these expectations (field et al., 2013). one alternative can be to provide automated feedback generated independently of the tutor. however, as stevenson & phakiti (2014) point out, there is only modest evidence available to suggest that automated feedback can improve students’ writing. this study seeks to add to that evidence, by looking at whether a new form of automated graphical visualisation – showing the coherence and structure of academic writing – can provide feedback to help students reflect on ways that writing might be improved. interpretation of this graphic feedback, (called a ‘rainbow diagram’), requires students to identify compactness and graphic outliers1. to establish where students looked whilst doing this, an eyetracker was used. assignment feedback in higher education traditionally consists of comments provided by a tutor, for the student to read and retrospectively reflect on (nicol, 2020). nicol, (2010) observes that research suggests a need to improve the quality of this type of feedback. nonetheless, whether comments are given formatively, as a student is drafting, or summatively, after the writing has been submitted, comments alone do not lead to improvement. a student needs to compare their work with the comments and generate internal feedback (nicol, 2019), from which they can then make improvements as part of their approach to writing (nicol & macfarlane‐dick, 2006). thus feedback can be seen as a dialogue between teacher and student where learning is constructed through a cycle of feedback and reflection (askew & lodge, 2000). research shows that the growth in student numbers presents a challenge to the provision of tutor feedback. furthermore, surveys of students consistently find that satisfaction with feedback provision ranks lower than other features of their 1 please see page 3 ‘what is a rainbow diagram?’ for an explanation of compactness and graphic outliers. course (nicol, 2010). with this in mind, feedback from an automated writing evaluation (awe) system might be able to help, by providing the necessary stimulus for students to constructively and proactively engage with feedback on their writing. awe systems are a form of ‘learning system’, the development of which has been facilitated by advances in natural language processing (nlp). the ability of a computer program to interpret the meaning of text now facilitates a more complex analysis of language, which in turn can enhance the automated marking of essay assignments (shermis & burstein, 2013). indeed nlp has been identified as one of the most successful methods for analysing writing (shum et al., 2016). consequently, many different awe systems have been developed, such as criterion (burstein et al., 2003); writetolearn (landauer, 2003); and, openessayist (field et al., 2013). one of the challenges of awe development is establishing meaningful and accessible ways of displaying complex nlp data in a user-friendly way. ware (2013) identifies that a good way of comprehending such complex data is through visualisations. while whitelock et al., (2014) observe that such comprehension can occur through pattern identification, users must also understand the patterns within the context of the task that they are undertaking. thus, when visualisations are used to provide feedback on academic writing it is important that users can not only interpret the patterns but also use them to improve their work. picking up on this, my work here reports the findings of a small study which set out to investigate whether the graphical visualisation feedback within openessayist (the rainbow diagram) can be interpreted by students in ways that facilitate reflection on the coherence of their academic writing, with a view to improving it. openessayist openessayist is an automated formative feedback system designed to provide feedback to help students improve their academic writing when no other prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 43 4(1) feedback is available. the feedback is intended to encourage students to reflect on the content and structure of their writing. openessayist does this by providing feedback on essay content and structure through text and graphic visualisations (whitelock et al., 2013). following reflection, a student would redraft the essay as required and then re-submit it to openessayist to obtain further feedback. the cycle of feedback and submission continues until the student is confident that their draft meets the assignment criteria and submits it for summative assessment (whitelock et al., 2015). therefore openessayist, instead of suggesting detailed correction for an essay, facilitates reflection on what has been written by the writer (whitelock, 2018). this self-evaluative approach accords with what beaumont et al., (2011) see as the fundamental aim of feedback, the development of a student’s capacity for selfregulated learning. within openessayist a new type of graphic feedback is offered, called a rainbow diagram; this helps the reflective process by showing how well key concepts within the essay are connected. the rainbow diagram has been the subject of research by whitelock et al., (2014) who found that participants could determine – through comparison of the diagrams – essays that were awarded low-grade or high-grade marks by tutors. as such my paper here details a follow-on study developed to enhance whitelock et al.’s research, to further explore the ways in which participants might use the rainbow diagram to improve their own academic writing. what is a rainbow diagram? the rainbow diagram is a graph which provides a visualisation of the interconnectedness of sentences within an essay, thereby providing an overall indication of essay coherence (see figures 1 and 2 below). each node (or dot) in the rainbow diagram represents a sentence within the essay which has some relevant words in common with at least two other sentences (whitelock et al., 2014). the node which represents the first sentence in the essay will be violet and the node which represents the last sentence will be red. the nodes in-between change through the colours of the rainbow such that sentences towards the beginning of the essay will be shades of violet and sentences towards the end of the essay will be shades of red. an algorithm places a connecting line between one node and another node when the same relevant word appears in the sentence represented by each node (whitelock et al., 2014). the algorithm compares the sentences with each other and derives a value representing their interconnectivity. that value determines how close the node representing one sentence is, in the diagram, to the node representing the other, linked, sentence (whitelock et al., 2014). in a well-structured essay the nodes will be close to each other and nodes of similar colours tend to be grouped near each other towards the centre of the diagram (see figure 1). this is because the sentences associated with the introduction (violet nodes) are grouped near to the nodes associate with the conclusion (red nodes) (whitelock et al., 2014). in a less well-structured essay the nodes will tend to be more dispersed with the red nodes towards the outside of the diagram and the violet nodes toward the centre (see figure 2). early drafts of an essay might have more dispersed nodes. each time an essay is redrafted and refined the nodes in the rainbow diagram should become more central, thereby suggesting the drafting has improved structure and coherence of the essay (whitelock et al., 2014). figure 1 high-grade essay prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 44 4(1) figure 2 low-grade essay what is eye-tracking? this study made use of tobii eye-tracking equipment situated in a laboratory at the open university. eye-tracking devices can provide a dynamic record of where an individual looks on a computer screen (poole & ball, 2006) and are widely used to record eye-dwell time on areas of interest (hogarth et al., 2008). two eye-tracker data outputs were used, the ‘gaze plot’ and ‘heat map’. the gaze plot is a visualisation which shows which points on a visualisation are viewed, the order in which they are viewed and for how long they are viewed (see figure 3). it is a dynamic plot and builds up as a participant views the screen. each gaze point is represented by a circle and the larger the circle the longer the gaze time. the heat map is also a dynamic visualisation. it uses colouration to show where on the rainbow diagram a participant gazed most (see figure 4) and thus identifies what most drew a participant’s attention. figure 3 example of a gaze plot figure 4 example of a heat map eye-tracking can be used to determine where participants look during the interpretation of graphics (mayer, 2010). to interpret the rainbow diagram, students had to identify which nodes were well connected and which were not. use of the eyetracker produced a record of where participants looked when undertaking this process. the data gathered was also used as stimulus for participants’ verbal reflection on why they looked where they did. research questions the study objective was to explore whether the rainbow diagram could help students reflect on the prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 45 4(1) coherence of their writing. it sought to do this through three research questions (rq): rq1: can graphical feedback from a rainbow diagram help students reflect on the coherence of their academic writing? rq2: what barriers do students perceive to using the rainbow diagram? rq3: can an eye-tracker help understanding of where students’ look on a rainbow diagram? 2. method participants were drawn from full-time phd students at the centre for research in education and educational technology (creet) at the open university. invitations were sent to 47 students, of whom 13 agreed to participate in the research. to maintain anonymity students are referred to by research participant numbers, for example rp 23. the research method consisted of three parts. part 1 introduced students to the principals of the rainbow diagram through a paper-based exercise. after reading a brief introduction to the rainbow diagram participants were provided with a folder containing four sections. each section contained examples of four rainbow diagrams of the same grade: •section 1 high-grade essays •section 2 – low-grade essays •section 3 – medium-grade essays • section 4 stanford booth prize essays (i.e. very good essays). the rainbow diagrams used for the high, medium and low-grade essay examples, were from essays used for research undertaken by whitelock, et al., (2014). they were written by participants drawn from a subject panel2 maintained by the open university’s department of psychology. the stanford booth prize competition essays were drawn from essays submitted for consideration in the competitions held in 2006 and 2007. the length of the stanford booth 2 the ‘subject panel’ was a list of volunteers who had indicated in advance that they were happy to be approached to participate in research. prize essays was slightly reduced to comply with the word limit for submission to openessayist. the coherence of the stanford booth prize essays was such that despite the reduction in length, the rainbow diagrams produced were densely connected with a core of overlapping nodes. in part 1 participants were asked to use what they had learnt from the introductory document to identify which section within the folder contained examples illustrating which type of essay. they were provided with written instructions for completing the exercise and an answer grid (see figure 5). figure 5 part 1 exercise answer grid table 1 details the rating criteria for the rainbow diagram used by the participants. the criteria were the same as that used by whitelock et al., (2018). low-scoring diagrams medium-scoring diagrams high-scoring diagram not densely connected densely connected area but some outlying nodes densely connected red nodes (conclusion) not central red (conclusion) and violet (introduction) not so closely connected red nodes (conclusion) central few links between violet (introduction) and red (conclusion) nodes close links between violet (introduction) and red (conclusion) nodes prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 46 4(1) table 1 rating criteria for rainbow diagrams (whitelock et al, 2018) whilst deciding, students were asked to ‘think aloud’ (van someren et al., 1994) and explain their thought processes for determining which set of rainbow diagrams represented which category of essay. semi-structured questions were used to clarify and probe their reasoning. for part 2 of the research, students provided a piece of their own academic writing which was copied into openessayist to produce a rainbow diagram. students were asked to view the rainbow diagram of their work and used a ‘think aloud’ protocol to explain how they interpreted the feedback and how they might use it to improve their work. if required, the student’s explanation and reasoning was probed and clarified using semi-structured questions. the rainbow diagram was displayed on a computer monitor fitted with an eye -tracker. during viewing of the rainbow diagram, the eye-tracker recorded where on the diagram the students’ gazed, how long they gazed for and the track they took from one gaze point to another. the eye-tracking data enabled triangulation (cohen et al., 2011) of interview data and facilitated richer recall data in part 3 of the study. part 3 of the interview was a period of stimulated recall (gass & mackey, 2000) when the eye-tracking gaze plot and heat map were shown to the student. through contextual semi-structured interviews, students were asked to recall their thoughts as to why their gaze went to the points on the rainbow diagram that it did and what they were thinking at that time. students were also asked semi-structured questions about the usefulness to them of the rainbow diagram for reviewing their academic writing. the interview data from the research was analysed using braun and clarke’s (2006) six phase thematic analysis process: data familiarisation; coding; generation of themes; reviewing themes; defining and naming themes; writing up. coding followed braun and clarke’s (2019 p.594) inductive approach and was based on the researcher’s interpretation of the semantic content of the data. it was undertaken using nvivo software. subsequently the codes were grouped into themes. the part 1 exercise sought data for rq 1 and 2. the part 2 and 3 exercises sought data for rq 1-3. 3. findings and discussion this section presents and discusses the research findings. it identifies the outcome of the part 1 exercise, introduces five themes which emerged from a thematic analysis of the interview data from all three parts of the study and then discusses the eyetracking data and how it triangulated the interview data. part 1 of the research followed a pattern similar to that of whitelock et al., (2014): students were asked to identify which section within a folder represented which of the high, medium, low and stanford booth prize essay types. of the 13 participants, 11 correctly identified which section in the folder represented which type of essay (see table 2). participants correct responses for section 1 correct responses for section 2 correct responses for section 3 correct responses for section 4 n=13 11 13 13 11 table 2 student responses to the identification exercise for the four different types of rainbow diagrams individual participant responses are shown in table 3 (figure 5 [above] details the letter meanings). rp no. section 1 section 2 section 3 section 4 23 b d c a 24 b d c a 25 b d c a 26 undecided d c undecided 27 b d c a 28 b d c a 29 b d c a 30 a d c b 31 b d c a 32 b d c a prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 47 4(1) 33 b d c a 34 b d c a 35 b d c a table 3 participant responses for the part 1 exercise students were asked to ‘think aloud’ whilst conducting the exercise and to explain their reasoning for making the choices they did. participants tended to make visual comparisons between the rainbow diagrams to determine which ones were the most densely clustered and therefore represented the higher-grade essays. some participants found it more challenging than others to differentiate the medium grade essays from the high-grade essays, although all students did this. two students were unable to distinguish the high-grade essays from the stanford booth prize essays, as the rainbow diagram pattern for both essay types was tightly clustered. this result differs from that of whitelock et al., (2014) where all participants correctly determined which rainbow diagrams related to which type of essay. however, as the stanford booth prize essays are also ‘high-grade essays’, it is perhaps not surprising that two participants did not distinguish between them. thematic analysis of all three parts of the research data identified five themes: •comparison interpretation •writing confidence •academic writing skills •comprehension of the rainbow diagram •barriers and openings each of these themes will now be briefly discussed. theme comparison interpretation during part 1 of the research the ‘think aloud’ protocol identified that most students made comparisons between the rainbow diagrams in the different sections of the exercise folder. for example, rp.27 said, ‘so i can see that most of them were in the middle, central they are central, and then i compared them with the folders, the essays of the folder group three, they were in the centre but not that close to the violet nodes’. the theme suggested that from reading a short one-page introductory document it was possible for students to understand which pattern of rainbow diagram represented which type of essay. students also made comparisons during part 2 of the study. a common pattern was for participants to think back to part 1 and make use of the knowledge about what the different node clusterings on a rainbow diagram might mean. for instance, rp.25 said, ‘oh, it looks like, following the previous instructions, a kind of a medium because you have quite a lot of red dots in the middle, some of them are spread around, and the violets are near the middle’. from these comments, it appeared rp.25 was using the knowledge gained from the part 1 exercise to interpret their own academic writing. rp.30 commented that: ‘it's about what i expected to see, there is very little connection between the beginning and the end though they are moderately grouped. obviously if you are believing the premise of the software you should be driving everything towards the centre and linking your intro to your conclusions and your [main] body and making all the dots pile up on top of each other’. rp.30’s comments inferred they were able to visualise what they thought a rainbow diagram of their work would look like having completed the part 1 exercise. during part 3 of the research, participants reviewed the eye-tracking heat map and gaze plot whilst commenting on why they had been looking where they did on the rainbow diagram. for example, rp.28 commented: ‘i mostly look at the centre because i was trying to identify how many red spots i have and how many violets spots i have, if they are close to each prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 48 4(1) other and if there are a lot of links between them, so yes that's the main reason’. this suggested that students, having read a short one-page introduction to the rainbow diagram, were following the instructions provided to interpret it. it also suggested that students were using the knowledge from the part 1 exercise to interpret the rainbow diagram of their own writing. theme writing confidence there were several areas in which use of the rainbow diagram feedback might be able to improve student confidence in the coherence of their academic writing. for six of the 13 students english was not their first language. several of these participants suggested that the rainbow diagram could give confidence they had written a coherent piece of work in english. rp.28 commented: ‘i think it could be really useful for my writing. not being a native speaker that's one of the things that i'm struggling with. writing is one of the things that i find difficult’. rp.28 was asked if they thought there might be some benefit to students with english as a 2nd language in using a tool like openessayist. they replied: ‘yes, definitely yes because, so academic writing in […] is quite different with, actually it's totally different with academic writing in english. in […] academic writing has to do with very very long and philosophical sentences while in english you need to be very precise, very short’. the data suggested that students whose first language is english can also gain confidence in the coherence of their writing from the rainbow diagram. for instance, rp.24 commented: ‘based on the diagrams that i saw in the previous one as well, like i'm happy it would be within the top two categories of, that we were shown in comparison so yeah, with those as my point of reference i am quite happy with the way that this essay turned out’. some participants however, had doubts about the extent to which the rainbow diagram could give confidence in the cohesiveness of their writing. rp.33 said: ‘and i'm sure once you get used to looking at these things you might feel better about it but as an instant piece of, it is something that needs to whack you in the face, then it's not doing it for me yet’. thus they acknowledged that with further experience they might gain confidence from rainbow diagram feedback, but they were not there yet. this comment is understandable, as the participant’s knowledge of the rainbow diagram was limited to what they had learnt in the part 1 exercise. rp.32 suggested that the rainbow diagram might be useful for developing the confidence of 1st and perhaps 2nd year undergraduate students who were learning academic writing. they said: ‘if you are just starting to learn how to write essays i think you should definitely start with learning about the structure and it’s also easy to write about anything in the world, having the rainbow in your mind you remember that you need to stay on topic and make sure that every paragraph is linked to what you said before’. theme – academic writing skills this theme pulls together a range of potential benefits for academic writing of using the rainbow diagram. one potential benefit is assistance to students with learning disabilities. rp.34 commented that: ‘people with learning disabilities, if there is a common thread that they can follow that is going to make it 10 times easier for them and this i think helps with that, which is quite interesting, not sure if it's anything they ever thought of using before for accessibility.’ however it is acknowledged that, particularly for students who have colour vision impairment, the rainbow diagram in its current format will present some challenges. one objective of openessayist prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 49 4(1) feedback is to help students to become self-regulated learners. this was acknowledged by rp.27 who said: ‘okay i can see the rainbow diagram as a tool for self-assessment where it's not the teacher who's telling me you did this, look at that, but it's me more making some inferences looking at the diagram by my own means and trying to work it out then if i make sense of it’. echoing this rp.34 said: ‘i think it's such a good tool to have even like, even for at our level where we are writing a thesis. i'm sure it just makes it so much easier to read the, for the reader, it makes more sense as you are going through’. participants who saw themselves as visual learners commented favourably on the rainbow diagram feedback. for example, rp.27 stated: ‘for me i always consider myself more visual, so when i see a graph that represents the structure of my essay how do sentences like meaning and semantics align with the structure [...] [it] is a very good advantage’. theme – comprehension of rainbow diagram. the fourth group of codes came together under the theme of understanding and using the rainbow diagram. some participants had mixed views on how easy the rainbow diagram is to understand. for example, rp.35 commented: ‘think in terms of how busy the diagram is and it's quite easy to interpret, the closer together nodes the more coherent your writing is so that is pretty straightforward’. however, they also went on to say that: ‘in terms of the different colours and connections between the dots i'm not quite sure’. thus while it might be fairly straightforward to predict whether an essay is of a high, medium or lowgrade based on the closeness of the nodes, and also thereby assess the cohesiveness of the essay, it is perhaps more challenging to interpret the connections of colours between violet and red and what these mean for the coherence of the essay where, for example, there is a green shaded outlier node on the diagram. perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, most students commented that they wished to be able to click on a node and receive information about which sentence within their writing the node represented. several students pointed out that users would need a level of training to understand and use the rainbow diagram to improve academic writing. rp.24 pointed out that it would be important to train users on how to interpret the patterns. they commented: ‘i think it's just a different tool, as long as you know how to interpret it it's fine’. rp.29 similarly identified the need for training, suggesting that: ‘i think if people had that prior training that i have just done then they could look at that and they could really draw some beneficial conclusions from it’. thus, where participants found it challenging to distinguish between some of the rainbow diagram graphs, they thought this was something which could be overcome with training and experience of use. theme – barriers and openings not all participants thought that the rainbow diagram feedback would assist them. for example, rp.26 commented that: ‘i don't think i'd find it particularly useful, i think that's just me really. i don't find it very intuitive in terms of how to interpret it’. however, they did also go on to say: ‘i think if you saw it as an animated effect, rather than a static image at the end, so you saw how your argument was being built up […] you can see that you are making the connections’. to some extent this observation reflects a limitation in the way part 2 of the study was prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 50 4(1) constructed, as participants reviewed work they had already completed. openessayist does facilitate the viewing of each draft as a rainbow diagram as it is completed and permits a comparison between the rainbow diagrams of each draft. this enables users to see that they are making the connections required within the work. to improve the feedback, rp.33 commented that they would like to have a percentage score for the cohesiveness of the rainbow diagram graph, with 100% for a perfectly interconnected and cohesive graph. they said: ‘what i'd really like the rainbow diagram to do is give me a percentage, give me a mark or something because this is a whole like mass of interconnections, and it's not very interpretable […] so what i wanted to say, okay based on all of these criteria you have scored 89% in your rainbow diagram or something like’. overall participants thought that the rainbow diagram provided a good visual clue as to the cohesiveness of their academic writing. furthermore, they showed an understanding of how they could improve their writing using the rainbow diagram. importantly, the outlying nodes of the rainbow diagram encouraged participants to reflect on their writing to identify the lack of interconnectedness which had caused the outlier, which they felt would facilitate an improvement in their writing. whilst participants were generally able to interpret the rainbow diagram feedback and use it to make some suggestions as to how they might improve their academic writing, they also viewed the rainbow diagram critically and made suggestions as to what would improve it for them. eye-tracking data findings whilst undertaking part 2 of the study students had their eye movement recorded by an eye-tracker. this provided a visual indication of where participants were looking to compare with what they said about where they were looking whilst ‘thinking aloud’. the heat maps universally showed that students’ attention was attracted most to the centre of the rainbow diagram (see figures 6 and 7 [below] for examples). figure 6 heat map for rp 29 figure 7 heat map for rp 32 the gaze plots showed that students tended to initially look at the centre of the rainbow diagram. their gaze then moved to look at an outlier node before moving to look back to the centre of the rainbow diagram. this pattern then tended to be repeated for other outlier nodes. the interviews confirmed that participants looked at the centre of the rainbow diagram to assess its compactness, then the outlier nodes to assess the interconnectedness of their work. for example, rp.23 said: ‘so i think i started looking at the central bit because i thought it was quite dense then i started looking at the outer elements of where there are kind of a few nodes on the outside of things, i was probably there trying to fix on the connections prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 51 4(1) about how strong they were and where they were linking to’. the heat maps, along with the gaze plots and participant interviews, evidence that the rainbow diagrams were interpreted systematically by participants. they looked at the centre of the rainbow diagram to determine how tightly clustered the nodes were, and therefore how cohesive their writing was. they then looked at the outlier nodes and their connections to the central nodes to determine how connected the outlier nodes were and decide what changes were required to make their writing more cohesive. an element of that process involved determining, via the colour of the node, where in their writing the sentences represented by outlier nodes were. 4. summary of findings the part 1 exercise demonstrated that students were able to distinguish between high, medium and low-grade essays. though two participants did not distinguish the stanford booth prize essays from high grade essays, overall the result of the exercise reflected the findings of whitelock et al., (2014) that students are able to use the rainbow diagram to distinguish between the essay types. part 2 of the study added to the research of whitelock et al., (2014) and showed that students can use their understanding of a rainbow diagram to review the coherence and structure of their writing and reflect on how they might improve it. how participants described their review of the rainbow diagram was triangulated by eye-tracking data, which was discussed with participants in part 3 of the study. this showed that participants tended to review the rainbow diagram systematically, their gaze going from the centre to outlier nodes then back to centre. the study answered rq 1 by showing that rainbow diagram feedback can help students reflect on the structure and coherence of their writing. it enabled students to recognise when their writing was less well constructed, consider how it might be improved and identify what an improvement might look like on a rainbow diagram. the rainbow diagram therefore has the potential to provide feedback to improve academic writing and give confidence that writing is well written. in answer to rq 2, the study identified no substantial barriers to using the rainbow diagram. after reading a brief introductory document, students were able to understand the graphic and use it to interpret their writing, though one student did state they did not find the rainbow diagram particularly intuitive and made suggestions as to how it could be improved for them. the study answered rq 3 by showing that eye-tracking can reveal where students looked on the rainbow diagram. the data triangulated students’ verbal explanations and facilitated stimulated recall as to why students looked where they did. 5. study limitations and further research there are several potential limitations to the findings of this study. a possible limitation of part 1 was that the printed rainbow diagrams of the stanford booth prize essays were produced from an electronic source, whereas the other three essay types were photocopies of previously printed rainbow diagrams. the difference was evident as the electronic source of the stanford booth prize essays produced a clearer print. this could possibly suggest those rainbow diagrams came from a different source. several participants commented on difference in print clarity. however as, with two exceptions, all students commented on extreme compactness of the stanford booth prize essay rainbow diagrams, it is assessed that the effect of the print clarity on the result was negligible. part 2 of the research indicated students were able to interpret the rainbow diagram and use it to make suggestions as to how they might improve their academic writing. a limitation of this finding is that students were commenting on academic writing which they had already written, whereas the rainbow diagram feedback is designed to help students at the drafting stage of writing. the participants did not, therefore, interpret their writing in the true context of automated formative feedback. furthermore, their knowledge of the academic writing submitted might prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 52 4(1) be dated and not readily recalled. indeed, a potential limitation of the think-aloud method is that only information which enters a person’s short-term memory can be processed verbally (ericsson and simon, 1980). nonetheless students did analyse their writing using the rainbow diagram and made suggestions as to how it could be used to improve it. further research will obtain data from students who have used the rainbow diagram whilst drafting an assignment and explore the extent to which the rainbow diagram can provide feedback on different types of academic writing. such data will provide a more robust evaluation of the usefulness of the rainbow diagram to students. 6. conclusion this study has followed on from the research of whitelock et al., (2014) and explored how students might use the rainbow diagram to improve their academic writing. thematic analysis (braun and clarke, 2006) was used to examine the data and five themes were identified from this process. overall analysis of the data from the study showed that the rainbow diagram can give students an understanding of the coherence and structure of their academic writing. through that understanding students can use knowledge of their work to reflect on what actions, if any, need to be taken to improve the coherence and structure of it. undertaking this process can give students confidence in their writing. to facilitate use of the rainbow diagram, students were given instruction on how to interpret it. this was important, as all participants made some form of comparative reference between rainbow diagrams to help with their interpretation. participants were not wholly uncritical of the rainbow diagram. it was sometimes challenging to clearly distinguish a medium-grade essay from a highgrade or low-grade essay, though all participants did so. whilst most participants were confident in interpreting the connections between the violet (introductory) and red (concluding) nodes, they were less confident in interpreting what it meant if intermediate-coloured nodes, from the main body of their work, were outliers from the centre of the rainbow diagram. following on from this, most participants suggested that it would be useful to be able to place the computer cursor over a node and find out which sentence the node related to. overall participants concluded that the rainbow diagram can help provide confidence in the structure and coherence of their academic writing and facilitate reflection on how structure and coherence might be improved. prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 53 4(1) 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. acknowledgements the research was funded by the open university. the authors would like to thank the students who took part in the study. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) foster, whitelock, cross & kear (2022) prism 54 4(1) 10. references askew, s., & lodge, c. 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(2015). openessayist: a supply and demand learning analytics tool for drafting academic essays. 208–212. https://doi.org/10.1145/2723576.2723599 http://oro.open.ac.uk/41845/1/dcla14_whitelock_etal.pdf http://oro.open.ac.uk/41845/1/dcla14_whitelock_etal.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97807-9_1 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97807-9_1 https://doi.org/10.1145/2723576.2723599 prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401214 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401214 29 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 the future of teaching? asimov’s three laws and the hypothetical robot teacher nicola robertson school of education, university of strathclyde, glasgow, uk (n.robertson@strath.ac.uk) received: 03/12/2020 accepted for publication: 14/06/2021 published: 10/10/2021 abstract there is no denying that the influence and use of technology in relation to teaching and learning increased significantly during the co-vid-19 periods of isolation and lockdown. the screen became the classroom; the teacher (and the students), rendered as apparitions of virtuality. nevertheless, despite the barriers of distance and screen, there remained (and indeed remains) something distinctly human about these interactions. what if the teacher on the screen – and, indeed, in the classroom – was not human? remotely controlled robotic teachers have been trialled in china, with positive feedback from students; yet teaching remains a profession that has been deemed at low risk of automation. this paper will consider isaac asimov’s three laws of robotics as a foundational base for predicting the behaviour of a potential, autonomous, robot teacher; comparing the predictions in relation to behaviours deemed as necessary for the successful practice of teaching. to do this, the paper will set out the three hypothetical scenarios, in order to explore – and hopefully determine – whether a ‘robot’ could effectively carry out key teaching activities. the speculative responses to these questions will hopefully inspire further discussion and discourse. keywords: teaching, robotics, technology, asimov 1. introduction the ubiquity and use of digital technology has been on a steady, and increasing, trajectory. gordon moore famously predicted that this would be the case, when he argued in 1965, that machines would continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful every two years (rotman, 2020). already immersed in a world of education technology, the drastic co-vid-19 related events that unfolded in 2020 saw us migrate further (in fact entirely) to a digital educational world; an ersatz, alternative to the more traditional and physical worlds of which we were more familiar. the effect that this rapid transition had on our relationship with the digital remains to be fully understood; however, it is safe to confidently assert that digital technology played a dominant role in our professional and educational lives during this time. in education, this has been keenly felt, and continues to so, as some institutions incorporate models of blended learning, or entirely online teaching. the educational places that we recognised prior to co-vid-19 were (during the 2020 and 2021 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401214 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:n.robertson@strath.ac.uk prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 30 4(1) lockdowns) replaced by screens; students and colleagues rendered as pixelated apparitions on those screens. nevertheless, provided that we do not descend into solipsism or matrix-inspired conceptualisations of the universe, we can be fairly confident that the human beings that we are interacting with via the screen were real: machines became mediators of human connection. the question that i will consider in this paper concerns this removal of direct human contact. taking the co-vid-19 technology based developments in a more speculative direction, i will consider whether it could be possible for technology – in the form of an educating robot – to take the place of a real human teacher? while teaching remains an occupation at low risk of automation (ons, 2019), trials of robot teachers have taken place in japan (hashimoto, verner and kobayashi, 2012), and south korea (rebora, 2011); although in both of these cases the robots were remotely controlled by a human teacher located nearby. setting my sights on potential future developments in both the fields of education and robotics, my intention is to discuss the possibility of autonomous robots – not under direct human control – being developed to assume a teaching role. 2. isaac asimov and the three laws of robotics since fully autonomous robots do not yet exist, we can must rely on speculation to consider and explore how they may behave; at most, extrapolating from the machines that we currently have in use. robot / machine ethics is a continuing and developing field of inquiry within academia, and inspires debate and discourse as wildly diverse as that found in (human) ethics. for this paper, i have chosen to supplement academic discourse with the imaginative offerings of science-fiction. given that we are dealing with a scenario that we have yet to – and indeed may never – encounter, speculation using science-fiction literature in relation to the educative problem seems a worthy and useful proxy. indeed, if we were looking to make a comparison, this approach could be seen as similar to using philosophy to add new dimensions to understanding literature. such distinctions are not necessarily easily distinguishable, and are certainly not opposing entities (latini, 2019). besides which, the earliest incarnation of the idea of machine ethics came itself from the pen of isaac asimov, in the 1942 short story runaround (asimov, 1995), and finds a place in academia as a framework to be considered, moulded and accepted/rejected (as in the case of anderson, 2005), rather than a literary trifle with no merit. furthermore, asimov himself had a significant academic reputation as a biochemist before he made the decision to become an author full time (touponce, 1991). it would not be unfair to suggest that his brand of science fiction was rooted as much in his empirical scientific experience as much as it was in his imagination. indeed, he viewed it as the first duty of a scientist not engaged in research to make science and its principles accessible to the general population – writing science fiction was a way for him to continue to be a working scientist while leaving behind the conventions of academia (touponce, 1991). thus, his invention of the words “robotics” and “positronic” could seamlessly make the transition from fiction to regular use in academia as they were intended as scientific terms. in spite of his background, his success and his passion, asimov remained surprised to find that he had inspired others to build robots in the fashion that he had so lovingly created them in his stories. as he notes himself, ‘when i wrote my robot stories i had no thought that robots would come into existence in my lifetime’ (asimov, 1995, p.10) so when he came across these “robots-in-reality” (as he referred to them), he was astounded that they resembled the industrial machinery, built with purpose, of his imagination – while not as intelligent or humanoid as his creations. asimov’s writings are perhaps not peer-reviewed, in as much as he had no peers at the time of his writing, and do not appear in any academic journal. however, they continue to be inspirational in a field which bears a title of his invention: robotics. therefore, i suggest that it is acceptable for us to look to asimov’s three laws to inspire an imaginative speculation on how an autonomous robot might behave in given situations. in his own words: ‘people who work in the field of artificial intelligence sometimes take occasion to tell me that they think prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 31 4(1) the three laws will serve as a good guide’ (1995, p. 10). with this in mind, let us articulate the three laws before continuing on to give definitions of the main concepts used in this paper: law 1: a robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. law 2: a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. law 3: a robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first two laws. 3. definitions before we can discuss the behaviour of the hypothetical robot teacher in any detail, it is necessary to define the main concepts mentioned in the laws: human being, teacher, robot, and harm. such definitions ensure the risk of misinterpretation remains low; besides which, a robot itself would necessarily have to hold sharply defined concepts of, basically, everything in order to identify it and interact with it. if we say, for example, that a robot must not harm a human being, we need to be sure, as a robot would, of what a robot is, and what a human being is to identify those instances where this may occur/has occurred, so that potential infractions of the three laws can be avoided/rectified. so, let us begin with the concept of the human being. 4. human being there are numerous interpretations of the concept of human being, and the task here will be to decide upon and justify the definition to be made. taking evans’ (2016) argument that we, both as members of the general public and as academics, refine our concept of human using particular [academic] anthropologies – choosing those which closely align with our worldviews – there are four broad perspectives we could take here. we could view humans as biological entities, and that our status as human is nothing more than the result of genetics. there is the theological anthropology – which evans suggests is specifically christian – which recognises the biological view but extends it to include the notion of soul, and the idea that humans were created in the image of god and, for that reason, humans can take primacy over other animals, but are equal in respect to each other. the philosophical anthropology identifies humans as those entities which hold important traits; for example, consciousness, higher intelligence, the ability to rationalise and communicate, and a sense of past and future. finally, a socially conferred anthropology – a definition as given by the human respondents, and members of the general public, of an investigation carried out by evans which sees a human as a communicative being which learns human norms and values. besides the results of evans’ own investigations, each of his theoretical anthropologies is presented as a summation of centuries old discussions, none of which offer a definition that could not be argued against, some of which could be identifiable with animals as well as humans. we can thus identify problems with each of these anthropologies: the biological view confers fundamental importance to genetics; what then of people with genetic mutations? should we think of them as not human? the theological view tells us that a human is only that being who was created in the image of god, yet the image of the human race is so diverse that one could easily find a person who did not fit this slim criterion, besides which we have no definitive image of god with which to compare ourselves. in philosophy, neither a baby without an ability to rationalise would be considered human, nor would an adult suffering mental ill health, and the socially conferred anthropology sets the criteria in an even narrower sense, with no real explanation of what those mandatory human norms and values, to which we should align ourselves, might be. morriss-kay (2010) describes one of the defining characteristics of the human species as the ability to create (visual) art. this is again problematic given, as morriss-kay herself admits, there is little agreement on how to define art. without a definition of art, we are left with the possibility of defining any creation as prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 32 4(1) “art”, and any creator of “art” as human. the hypothesis does not hold if, for example, we tie a paintbrush to a dog’s tail and aim it toward a canvas. neither would it work conversely: it would be possible for many people to point to creations by humans we would never consider to be “art”. this apparently defining characteristic is further indicative of the difficulty we have delineating what exactly is human. such muddy definitions, however, do not support our hypothetical robot to decide what is a human and what is not. it would seem that the most efficient method for our machine, and probably for us, is to categorise humans as those creatures which share the common traits of the genus “homo”: namely our large brains; the ability to walk upright; unrivalled fine motor skills and the intelligence to apply them; and our ability to learn and form social structures (harari, 2011). it may be prudent to add consciousness, and/or empathy, to this recipe given that these are oft cited as markers of humanity. yet with these, as with any of the aforementioned traits, we are likely to be able to point to a being we would describe as human who was missing at least one of them. since a sharper definition of the concept of human lies outside the scope of this paper, a view must be taken that is defined enough to suit the needs of the hypothetical robot, who will be required to identify the human on sight, and the needs of the reader, while acknowledging that it cannot be all encompassing. i suggest that such a view could be taken as follows (although i also understand that it remains highly problematic in itself): a human being is that which bears the physically recognisable traits of the genus “homo”. 5. teacher much like the notion of human being, the notion of teacher remains an elusive concept to describe given that it would require a thorough investigation of each individual’s notion of “teacher”. here, i will use a version of the pedagogical triangle (figure 1) which features strongly in the german didaktik tradition and is inspired by incarnations given in various works by friesen & osguthorpe, 2018 and kenklies, 2019. as a scholar, my research is closely aligned with the discussions of the pedagogical relation as it presented in works of continental pedagogy such as those by klaus mollenhaeur (2013), max van manen (1991; 2012) and norm friesen (2017). the model of relations as offered by the pedagogical triangle offers a neat parallel to examine the implications of the three laws on relations between robot (teacher) and human (student) i am, however, aware through observation, discussion, and tutoring prospective teachers that this is but one perspective on pedagogy. as with any and all speculations offered in this paper, the reader is encouraged to consider along the same lines as i have using a definition of pedagogy which is natural to them. the version of the triangle i have used is more elaborate than those featured in the texts from which i was inspired. the annotations i have included with regards to the qualities that could be found in each of the relations have arisen from inferences made from engagement with discourse and observations in practice; they are by no means fixed. i am confident that they are in keeping with the tradition of the relational model in continental pedagogy from which the concept of the pedagogical triangle was born. figure 1 the pedagogical triangle here, we can see the relation of the educator/teacher to their student and to the subject matter, allowing us to, thus, extrapolate the essential characteristics of the teacher. firstly, there must exist an intention to improve a student’s relation to content, which carries with it the intention to establish a relation with the student – this pedagogical relation is thus the intention of the prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 33 4(1) educator directed towards the student (nohl, 1933, as cited in friesen, 2017). the intention to improve a student’s relation to content, assumes that the educator must also have some relation to the content itself. in the triangle, this relation is characterised as expertise and passion for what is being taught. friesen and osguthorpe (2018) tell us that the teacher aims to effect a change in the student’s relation to the content, from (perhaps) confusion to clarity, by preparing and teaching it. however, a student’s relation to content can have different qualities. for example, in my version of the triangle i have suggested that the student may be ignorant of, or dislike, the content, based on my observations in practice that this can sometimes be the case even before confusion sets in. in order to change the student’s relation to content effectively, we can infer that the teacher must have passion to drive the intention to teach the subject initially, and expertise in order to identify and communicate the important elements of it. furthermore, they should have sufficient ability to apply these in their practice. i suggest that without passion and expertise, the relation between educator and content becomes the same as that between student and content, thereby compromising the structure of the triangle, and of the pedagogical relation itself. of course, ideas of passion and relation have notable emotional, and human, connotations; intention arguably less so given that it is the root of all action – a machine, in asimov’s world, is built with the intention of fulfilling a purpose. that the intention lies initially with the engineer is of no consequence; the machine becomes the embodiment of such an intention. since our robot cannot be characterised as a human, we must craft a definition of teacher which accounts for the essentials of passion, relation, and intention in non-humans. i have, therefore, paraphrased from, and remodelled, a definition of non-human teacher as provided by caro and hauser (1992) in order to create a brief definition here: actor a can be said to teach actor b where its behaviour (whether organic in which actor a’s actions are not solely contingent on input from a third party or programmed – where actor a cannot act without such input) denotes an intention to facilitate actor b’s gaining of knowledge and experience, or sets an example for b which results in a changed (or improved) relation between actor b and the subject matter. 6. robot to define the concept of robot, it is logical that we return to asimov himself to inform our definition given that we will be discussing the application of his laws based on the machines of his imagination. he makes a clear definition of robot as an industrial product built by engineers for a specific purpose, and he writes of autonomous robots as machines capable of judgement with no human input after the hardwiring of the three laws (asimov, 1995). this is somewhat removed from the original intended meaning of the word “robot” – an invention by karel capek (printed 1920, edition used 2011) for his play r.u.r in which a robot was a manufactured human, indistinguishable from the real thing. since we have already provided a definition of human being for the purposes of this investigation, and we have identified the need for as sharp a definition as is practicably possible, it would be senseless to refer to capek’s idea of robot simply because it renders our less than perfect distinction between robot and human with even more blurred lines. therefore, we can take asimov’s definition of robot as reasonably appropriate for this paper. however, before we can do so, we must address the issue of autonomy. asimov tells us that our hypothetical robot is a machine capable of making judgements without human input, and this is supported by definitions of autonomy such as that offered by bartneck and forlizzi (2004), in which it is succinctly given that autonomy is “having the technological capabilities to act on behalf of humans without direct input from humans.” (p. 593). it is prudent, nonetheless, to examine this against other conceptualisations of autonomy. autonomy as described by kupfer is, most basically, “a concept of oneself as a purposeful, self-determining, responsible agent” (1987, p. 82). in order to get there, he argues, privacy is essential as this conveys to the autonomous being that they alone are responsible for determining how much of themselves to reveal to others and it prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 34 4(1) gives opportunities for self-scrutiny and evaluation. using kupfer’s definition, we may then say that it is impossible for a machine ever to reach this level of self-concept given that it is not afforded any privacy. the entire inner workings of the machine – including the code used to create its “brain” are known to the engineer(s) from its inception. yet, in asimov’s definition, after the robot’s build and initial coding, there is no further human input1. could this offer the privacy required for the machine to reach a state of autonomy in the way that kupfer describes? even if not, how much would that be required given that, in this world of hypotheticals, we could perhaps code such a concept of oneself as an autonomous agent, thereby creating a short cut to autonomy? in any case, can we even justify the use of kupfer’s idea of autonomy when it is explicitly referring to humans? we once again risk muddying the waters of our distinctions. hexmoor, castelfranchi and falcone (2003) refer to karl popper’s response to alan turing’s challenge that a computer could do whatever a human could, in which he asserted that a computer (or artificial intelligence, or indeed robot) did not hold the initiative, the ability to reason pro-actively, that is necessary for autonomy. this is, according to the authors, not entirely accurate as the agents and robotic systems being built at the time of their writing were showing “nontrivial initiative” (p. 2) which derives from the sharing of initiative with human beings and this, alongside the ability to interact with humans and other machines, is a core component of autonomy as they describe it. autonomy, when applied to machines in use currently, is derived from a relationship between the robotic agent and the human agent (castelfranchi and falcone, 2003). we are, therefore, not yet at the stage where complete autonomy of a machine is being speculated upon; indeed, david et. al (2016) as part of the defense science board, make the assertion that no machine, and, furthermore, no person, is truly autonomous in the strictest sense of the word. it is important to note 1 an interesting analogy could be drawn with education here: how much could we compare the building of an that the strict sense of the word to which they allude is curiously absent from their assertion. with this in mind, a definition of autonomous robot, if not fully autonomous, is required to allow us to continue on our hypothetical journey. from asimov, it has been suggested that robots should be purposeful machines built by engineers capable of non-human led judgement. what we have learned from later academics is that there is a necessary relationship between the human agent and robotic agent – even if this is just at the beginning during the machine’s build – and that robot autonomy is characterised by an ability to interact with humans and other machines. the ethical dimension of the autonomous robot is described by anderson (2005) when she notes that an autonomous machine is one preloaded with ideal ethical principles, or some examples of ethical dilemmas with “correct” answers (which, in my view, wrongly assumes a universally accepted correctness), and a learning procedure from which these so-called ideal ethical principles can be abstracted in order to be used to guide the robot’s own actions. from all of this, we can make a brief definition of autonomous robot as follows: an autonomous robot is a machine built by engineers for a specific purpose, which has the ability to interact with humans and other machines, and in doing so is guided by ethical principles and judgements; some coded and some (potentially) learned. 7. harm the final concept that asimov refers to in his laws is harm. this is a concept to which one may be tempted to apply a common sense approach; however, given that it is applied in the three laws to both humans and robots (although it is done in an implicit way when it is said that a robot must protect its own existence) we need a definition which suits both, and common sense may implore us to view it from a purely human perspective. thus, here follows a short consideration. autonomous machine with the bildung – formation of an autonomous human being? prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 35 4(1) an initial look to the legal definition – which is said to be ill treatment; the impairment of physical or mental health; or the impairment of physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development [of a young person] (thomson reuters, n.d.) – shows that it could be sufficient to both human and machine, depending on what is meant by ill treatment. it would also be necessary for legal rights to be inferred onto the machine before the legal definition could be said to have any weight. until the machine is viewed as an entity in its own right, it would be considered a piece of property with legal rights to it being held by its owner. therefore, any ill treatment given out to the machine would result in damages paid out to the owner with no judicial restitution for the machine alone. this is an insufficient definition for our inquiry, where our autonomous machine may not be thought to necessarily have an owner. mill offers a philosophical position on harm, in which he posits that a harmful action must violate, or risk violation of, the important interests of others in which they have a right (brink, 2018), which is once more sadly insufficient. again, it assumes rights which may not necessarily be placed onto the machine. while both the legal and philosophical definitions set out the criteria for how a human could come to harm (by either a robot, a human or the inaction of either), it is less suitable for recognising harm in reference to the machine. for this reason, i find that, outside of conducting a larger scale conceptual inquiry, we might appropriate a semantic definition here, rather than a systematic one, as it suits our needs in reference to both human and robot. i paraphrase a definition from the collins english dictionary (n.d.): harm is the damage caused to something which is the result of a particular course of action; to harm a thing, or person, means to damage them or make them less effective or successful than they were. having set out the definitions of the four main concepts involved, these will now be applied to three hypothetical scenarios, which play out the laws, to illustrate the potential behaviour of the autonomous robot when coded with asimov’s three laws. 8. law 1: a robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. in this first scenario, the robot teacher has a set a task for its students. one of the students is feeling particularly anxious about this task and is displaying a number of the common physical symptoms of anxiety: sweaty palm, shallow breathing, fast heart rate and gastric distress. these symptoms may, however, also be applicable to a number of other physical illnesses which would require medical attention. here, we assume that the robot – like a human teacher – is not necessarily equipped with the ability to diagnose medical ailments and so, based on a hard coding of this first law, must act to avoid this student coming to harm from the symptoms she is experiencing. it seems likely that the first course of action would be for the robot to remove the student from the situation, thereby lessening their anxiety, and symptoms thereof, but not allowing the student to complete the given task. the robot must take action to avoid any harm coming to the human, and whether it can recognise this as anxiety or not, for the human to remain in the situation with anxiety running high is likely to make them less effective, as in the definition of harm given above. this displays a limitation that the robot has over the human teacher: the ability to weigh risk and sacrifice, as well as a lack of future mindedness. education as a means of achieving, or at least aiming for, a changed future (better, perhaps) relies on the ability to be future-minded (kenklies, 2020). the educator, as we have seen on the pedagogical triangle, begins with an intention to improve a student’s relation to content, and this is an intention rooted in the desire to change the future. in order to do this, it is sometimes necessary to endure an unpleasant present: think of a woman suffering the apocalyptic pain of childbirth to feel the love of her child in the years to follow, as an example. in the scenario concerning our student, the anxiety that they feel for the given task offers present discomfort but working through and completing the task offers potential future gain. it is a gamble that the human prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 36 4(1) teacher makes in predicting that the long term benefits to the student outweigh the risks taken in the short term. this, however, is not the only risk inherent in the pedagogical relation. biesta describes, as he sets out the “beautiful risk of education” (2013), that the teacher, in teaching, offers up a gift to the student and the student opens themselves up to receiving this gift as something radically new. the gift given by the teacher, i suggest, is encased in a fragile wrapping of self-consciousness – as is so often the case when one exposes and offers up something that they care, or are passionate, about. the teacher, thus, is opening up a part of him/herself to the student ready to give, and the student is opening up a part of him/herself ready to receive – there is a mutual vulnerability here. in this scenario, the human teacher would benefit from the flexible judgment of knowing that the student may need some support, reassurance and empathy to see their way through the task, where a robot teacher could not take the risk that the student may come to potential harm. 9. a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. in this second scenario, the robot teacher asks a loud and disruptive student to quieten down so that the rest of the class can work peacefully. the student, in all of his youthful belligerence, declines and tells the teacher to go away. the robot, seeing no conflict with the first law, in that its going away would not cause harm to the students in the class, dutifully retreats to the base destination as coded into its circuitry, and can no longer support or influence any of the students for whom it was responsible. this scenario presents us with the question of authority, and this runs beyond the idea of teacher as disciplinarian, that one-dimensional concept of authority so offered by education policy and professional literature (macleod, macallister and pirrie, 2012). as a multi-dimensional concept, macleod et al offer different notions of authority but note that it is personal authority, deriving from the personal qualities of the teacher, which students seem to recognise and respond to and not so much their expertise or any perceived power. whether expertise is a necessary presence when communicating authority or not, we know from the framework offered by the pedagogical triangle that it is a necessary presence in any teacher, regardless of the status of their authority. i suggest that authority and expertise run in tandem: without authority there cannot exist any trust that the teacher has expertise in the subject matter above that of the student, something which we have already inferred from the model of the pedagogical triangle should be present for improving a student’s relation to content. there are, of course, those who may disagree with this claim. rancière’s (1991) examination of the methods of joseph jacotot’s universal teaching advocates for the ignorant schoolmaster who aims to teach students by teaching them nothing and claims no expertise (or intelligence) above that of the students. i argue, however, that any proponent of this method, to execute it effectively, must at least have expertise in its tenets. authority, of course, is not inferred onto any teacher automatically. it is thought that in human teachers it relies somewhat on personal disposition, somewhat on the nature of their professional education (macleod, macallister and pirrie, 2012), which, by my interpretation, might arguably be considered expertise by another name. a machine could be coded to display a particular disposition, and be programmed to hold enough expertise, thereby potentially gaining authority via an alternate route. what the second law precludes, however, is the ability of the robot to exercise any authority they may gain as the students start to become aware that the power that they hold over the machine renders its authority moot. 10. law 3: a robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first two laws. in this final scenario, inspired by a scene in asimov’s short story bicentennial man (asimov, 1995), the robot is ordered by the same belligerent student from scenario two to dismantle itself. given that the second law takes precedence over the third, prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 37 4(1) the robot must obey the human command, or it would be in contravention of law two. a further dilemma ensues if the robot calculates that, by dismantling itself, it cannot act to prevent harm to the students in the class. the hierarchical nature of the laws means that now the first law should always take precedence, but an infinite loop is easily created if the student repeats his command ad nauseum, and each of the laws finds itself in conflict with the other two. an infinite loop in any computer program results in a crash which would render the internal programming, and thus the machine itself, dysfunctional. this scenario exposes the shortcomings of the laws in general as rigid, dogmatic principles governing behaviour. what hope for an entity in an ever changing world when they hold a limited propensity to change, if they hold such a propensity at all? i would be remiss to negate the idea that there are some humans – and by extension human teachers – who also live by what can be perceived as a rigid set of rules with a reluctance to change. i can understand how parallels could be drawn here, but what is inferred by education, and the pedagogical relation (as detailed in fig. 1), is that there is a capacity for change: the educator identifies this potentiality in their intention to change the student’s relation to content. however, this capacity to change in the student is a reflection of the educator’s potential for change: the teacher brings to life the student’s capacity to change by offering themselves as an example, and that which is brought to life in the student is thus reflected back at the teacher (fromm, 1956). a robot without such a capacity for change would be unable to project it, and recognise it, in their student. of course, it could be argued that a robot can change if it is programmed to do so or has been programmed to learn to do so. we could also even suggest that there is only a slight difference between the modification of internal circuitry and what happens when a person is educated. while such a discussion would be a worthwhile one to conduct, it is, again, not one which can take place here. 11. conclusion using asimov’s three laws as a foundation for predicting the behaviour of an autonomous robot in three hypothetical scenarios, i suggest that robots coded with these laws could not be considered teachers in any way comparable to our understanding of teacher as offered by the framework of the pedagogical triangle. it is the inability to exercise risk; a lack of future-mindedness; a hardwired lack of authority; and the rigid adherence to an inflexible set of laws with no capacity for change which work to the robot teacher’s detriment. this is, of course, my speculative view based on my understanding of the notion of teacher as needing all of the latter to be able to teach effectively. as i have mentioned previously, the notion of teacher varies according to the individual, as well as their definition of education, and as such there are others whom i expect will take a different view from my own. for example, there are some who hold the view that the only role of the teacher is to impart knowledge, and this viewpoint is evident in the kinds of technology currently in use, and being created, for this very purpose – i think of the example of massive open online courses (moocs) in which the relation between teacher and student is mediated by not only a screen, but also the physical and metaphorical distance between potentially thousands of students to one educator. of course, we can say that a robot need not be coded with the three laws; and indeed, as we find the development of robotics gathering apace, many academics in that field are working towards a code of meta-ethics which will offer a little more flexibility than that of asimov’s (anderson, 2005; mccauley, 2007). asimov acknowledged himself that what he had set out in his work of fiction was probably not infallible (anderson, 2005). the question then would become, what ethical system, if any, would be sufficient for a robot to be coded with in order for it to teach effectively? furthermore, if we ever did develop a machine which could teach, can we say that there is a machine that could be a teacher? is there such a distinction between doing and being? if so, when does the newly prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 38 4(1) trained teacher – instructed with abundance in the doing – make that qualitative leap into being a teacher? these are questions worth asking if we do not wish to risk our universities and colleges becoming “teacher factories” concerned only with the manufacture of people for a specific educational purpose. perhaps, if we were to take this viewpoint, there would not be so much difference between human and robot teachers after all. 12. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 13. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) robertson (2022) prism 39 4(1) 14. references anderson, s.l. 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https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-538-0246?transitiontype=default&contextdata=(sc.default)&firstpage=true https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-538-0246?transitiontype=default&contextdata=(sc.default)&firstpage=true https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-538-0246?transitiontype=default&contextdata=(sc.default)&firstpage=true prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401211 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401211 4 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 the idea of a post-colonial university rhody-ann thorpe université du littoral et de la côte d’opale, boulogne-sur-mer, france (rhody-ann.thorpe@univ-littoral.fr) received: 03/12/2020 accepted for publication: 14/06/2021 published: 04/09/2021 abstract universities in the english-speaking world may trace their origins to england, where the first universities of oxford and cambridge were established. these universities were, for centuries, the models for universities to come both in terms of structure and philosophy; and they also became a tool of british colonial policy. with the progression of british expansionism, many english men penned their ideas of a university; some of which were brought to fruition. in the 21st century, we have a multiplicity of independent nations which were formerly under british rule. while in most societies there was a phasing out of colonial institutions, many universities established during the colonial epoch seem to have withstood the test of time. it would be interesting therefore to assess some of these institutions and their evolutions in a broader endeavour to examine developments in higher education in societies post-independence. what conversations were had prior to independence regarding higher education? what ideas of a post-colonial university prevailed and what ideas should have been put forth? were there shifts away from what constituted a colonial university? this paper is also an attempt to include universities in the post-colonial discourse and to propose an ideals of the university from a postcolonial perspective. keywords: university, postcolonialism, higher education, british model, pan african university 1. introduction when newman wrote about the the idea of a university, his use of the word ‘idea’ referred to the greek sense of the word which speaks to the perfect form of something. thus, it was his conception of a university, in its perfect form, as it should be (mccartney et al., 1990, p. 39). for him, it was a ‘place of concourse whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge’ (kerr, 1991, p. 346). newman, who was a cardinal and founding rector of the dublin catholic university in 1851, was perhaps influenced by platonism in terms of his philosophies of what is and what should be (newman, 2020). in newman’s idea of a university, theology should be permitted a place in the university curriculum, as then, theology was an integral part of students’ general moral training and went with clerical tutors, compulsory chapel attendance, and subscription to the articles of the church (dale, 1972, p. 6). he thought it should have been included because in its absence the pursuit of knowledge as a https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401211 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401211 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:rhody-ann.thorpe@univ-littoral.fr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7510-5371 prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 5 4(1) whole is “prejudiced”, as it contradicts the idea that the university by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge (ker, 2011). he also conceived of the organisational structure of universities, which would be divided into departments such as (but not limited to): a school of useful arts, an observatory, an archaeological department, and a school of medicine. a university, according to newman, should have an established printing press to bring scholars into correspondence with the centres of intellect throughout europe. he also had a preference for the hiring of local professors to fill university positions (with the exception of foreign language teachers); and he recommended the hiring of tutors who would work in tangent with the professor (mccartney et al., 1990, p. 122).1 newman’s ideas surfaced at a time of worldwide colonial expansion. by then, britain, for example, had already amassed a vast global empire and pursued educational policies across the territories of its empire; these policies included the establishment of colonial universities.2 moreover, universities were already instruments of the spanish colonial empire, with the first universities being established in santo domingo (1538), lima (1551), mexico city (1551) among other places (brand, 1940). today, universities have grown in status, with many becoming internationally acclaimed. indeed, universities are some of the few institutions which continue to exist despite intact (in comparison to other historical institutions), despite shifts at societal and global levels; further consolidating alexandre’s idea of the university as being “eternal” (alexander, 2019). one of these shifts includes the transition from colonial status to independent-country status. 1 here, the word “local” meant irish. 2 the term ‘colonial universities’ is used here as the origin of these institutions may be found in royal commissions or through papal bulls at the time. 3 one contemporary example entails the #rhodesmustfall movement which started in south africa and has had worldwide reverberations. in most cases, if not all, universities are institutions which have survived the transition to independent status. in the present context where universities have become targeted as part of the growing call for decolonization, it is timely to turn the spotlight on to them, and to scrutinse their post-colonial rhetoric.3 a post-colonial critical lens is used here in an effort to understand and illustrate the repercussions of colonialism. as such, drawing on historical accounts and scholarly works on universities in former british colonies in africa and the caribbean, this paper proposes a synopsis of the development of higher education within these societies, with the aim of conceptualizing the idea of a post-colonial university. it is hoped that this paper will be instructive for the current discourses and policies related to the decolonisation of higher education. 2. the development of colonial universities in africa and the caribbean britain created universities across the different countries within its empire, as part of a colonial development scheme especially in the period following the second world war. the colonial office appointed two commissions to plan the new institutions: the asquith commission and the elliott commission.4 the asquith commission published a report in june 1945 recommending the establishment of an inter-university council for higher education in the colonies (kolinsky, 1983, p. 40). this council was formed in 1946 and its aim was to advise and assist in the development of facilities for higher education in colonial areas subjected to british administration (clarke, 1946). at that time, only four small universities existed, and less than ten post-secondary colleges were in all the territories covered by the colonial office (kolinsky, 1983).5 the council’s 4 the asquith commission (established in august 1943) was mandated to advise on policy over the whole range; and the elliott commission (established in june 1943) was tasked with advising on particular policies to be followed in the special circumstances prevailing in west africa. 5 the universities were malta, jerusalem, ceylon and hong kong; and the colleges were in the west indies, malaya, prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 6 4(1) purpose was to promote the expansion of universities in british colonial territories as comprehensive institutions offering both liberal education and professional training (idem).6 in terms of the design of a colonial university, we can refer to the writings of clarke (1946, p. 649), who argued that7. these universities should be designed according to the british model, but with some adaptations: clarke prescribed that social and cultural idioms be taken into consideration. furthermore, it was the task of the inter-university council to assist the nascent institutions in achieving intellectual integrity and adequate intellectual standards. special consideration needed to be given to the staff therefore, and as clarke recommended ‘for some time to come, staffs will have to be recruited very largely from britain’ (clarke, 1946, p. 649). this therefore formed one of the core tasks of the council, that was prescribed by the asquith commission: ‘to provide a supply of british university teachers to the new and developing institutions in the colonies and to aid in the training of local graduates of promise so that academic staff could be recruited increasingly from within the territories themselves’ (kolinsky, 1983, p. 40). in addition to staffing, colonial office planners also ruled on the degree-granting powers of the local institutions, as ‘the maintenance of standards by external examination became a paramount concern’ (hargreaves, 1973). this was perhaps in response to the nigerian context with regards to the yaba higher college in lagos which was founded by the colonial government in 1934. this college would have allowed the replacement of british colonial officials, who received high wages and allowances, with nigerians who would be paid less (livsey, 2016). however the college was also criticized for having poor facilities and that entry was severely restricted by the availability of positions as assistants in the civil service west africa, east africa and the sudan. indian affairs were dealt with by the colonial office. 6 the council later was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in october 1970. 7 sir fred clarke (1880-1952) was director of the institute of education, university of london (ioe) from 1936-1945 (kolinsky, 1985). furthermore, yaba students received a diploma tenable only in nigeria, rather than a university degree recognised across the empire or internationally (livsey, 2016). colonial planners thought that prestige and very high standards would be achieved by issuing external degrees through the university of london. furthermore, the latter acted as a guide, and assumed wide obligations in matters of advice, assistance, adaptations of courses of study, and provision for the participation of local staff in the work of examination. it did so in close cooperation with the inter-university council (hargreaves 1973). the ibadan university college was then created in 1947 as an affiliate to the university of london and yaba higher college was converted to the university college (university of ibadan, n.d.). furthermore, the recommended medium of instruction was english, which would implicate the responsibility of secondary schools to adequately prepare university entrants. this would also require teachers to have mastered the english language and to become competent in pedagogical practices (clarke, 1946). this was perhaps once more in response to earlier challenges and criticisms regarding the lack of proficient english-language speakers in the colonies. with regards to the development of higher education in the west indies specifically, the asquith commission put in place the irvine committee. it was named after its chairman sir james irvine, and departed from precedent by including four west indians among its seven members (springer, 1962). upon news of the appointment of the committees for west indian higher education, williams (1946) formulated his own ideas as per what a british west indian university should be of which a few will be highlighted.8 for williams, a colonial university should be established with vast knowledge of the region it intends to serve, it should address the challenges and chairman of the central advisory council for education in england. 8 eric williams was the first prime minister of the republic of trinidad and tobago. prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 7 4(1) currently faced by the people therein and the education that is intended to be imparted must therefore be of relevance to the context. williams also put emphasis on the imperative to address the question of curriculum which did ‘not sufficiently prioritize science and which used textbooks foreign to the student’s environment and experience’ (williams, 1946, p.149). for williams, the university should serve as a powerful lever towards economic readjustment as well as social and political change (1946, p. 150). moreover, for williams, the university should also pay keen attention to the other languages of the caribbean area, to deliberately promote multilingualism in the caribbean citizen. on the topic of university affiliation and the young colonial university having a “big brother” in the metropolitan country, williams thought that ‘the british west indian university should be an independent university, subject to direction of indirection from no other university, standing on its own feet, creating its own traditions, shaping its own development’. furthermore, by initially equipping universities with first class equipment, university standards would be less of a concern (1946, p. 153). yet, we can refer to priestly’s unpublished journal, ‘west indian journey’ wherein he documented recommendations by the committee set up by the government of jamaica which departs significantly from william’s assertions and recommendations.9 in terms of the proposal to establish a special relationship with the university of london, priestly notes: ‘we have decided that, in its earlier years, for the sake of the prestige of any west indian degree, the new institution shall take rank as a university college preparing its students primarily for the degrees of london university. it follows from this that, so far as the first phase of its existence is concerned, entrance tests will be those recognized by london, and the curriculum for the degree courses 9 raymond priestly was a member of the committee on higher education which visited the west indies in 1944. he, alongside four other members of his committee left the uk for the caribbean to start investigations pertaining to the establishment of a university in the region. the last entry is june 10, 1944 and may be viewed online at the university of the west indies’ website. must also conform, except in so far as london can be persuaded to approve modifications intended to make the courses germane to west indian conditions and needs’ (sherlock & nettleford, 1990). thus, the british university would play a patriarchal role in overseeing the development and quality assurance in the nascent colonial university. in october 1946, the university college of the west indies was formally established and dr. t.w.j. taylor, a chemist from oxford, was appointed principal (d’aeth, 1961, p. 104).10 it was conceived as essentially a residential university on the pattern of oxford and cambridge (braithwaite, 1965, p. 79). moreover, teachers were imported from britain in the effort to ‘to achieve and maintain an academic standard comparable with that of a british university’ (1965, p. 81). this had a significant impact on the cost of higher education because salaries had to be paid at a somewhat higher level than that in the united kingdom; passages to and from the uk had to be provided with adequate leave packages, and housing had to be provided for the substantial expatriate staff subsequently recruited (idem). 3. universities in the post-independence era for former british colonies, universities are one of the institutions that they inherited. in the caribbean, the university college of the west indies gained independent status in 1962, the year that jamaica obtained political independence.11 however, although jamaica took charge of its own destiny, the inherited structures and systems could not be changed immediately (nkrumah-young et al., 2008, p. 217). in fact, by 1965, the university was still granting london university degrees (fergus, 1998, p. 70). furthermore, there could be no immediate radical change as the university had become enveloped by a matrix of mechanisms that linked the british colonies 10 the university college was established in jamaica and it was to provide for the higher education needs of the british caribbean. 11 it is now called the university of the west indies. prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 8 4(1) in the region. indeed, up until the dissolution of the west indies federation the university was being funded by the british exchequer (ganzert, 1953, p. 112).12 nonetheless, at the time of independence the “west indian feeling” had already grown tremendously and this was reflected in the composition of staff. prior to independence, the proportion of west indians on the teaching staff fluctuated between a quarter and one-third and yet administrative posts were all held by west indians (springer, 1962, p. 13). following independence, this situation had evolved as stone (1983) notes: ‘the mona campus has evolved from being part of a university college awarding london university degrees and dominated by expatriates to becoming part of an independent university with a majority of west indian faculty’ (1983, p. 21). furthermore, in a part chronicle, part memoir of the difficulties, problems and achievements of the university in the 1970 and 1980s, rex nettleford and phillip sherlock noted that the university did indeed continue to have an inward-looking stance in relation to composition; this lead to the ‘demand that west indians should [become a] very high priority in the staffing of the university’ (cumper, 1993).13 moreover, efforts to “west indianize” the curriculum also intensified in the post-independence period. as goveia (1969) recalls, the history department of the university college of the west indies first came into existence in 1950; at the time, on a regional scale, very little west indian history was being taught. it was through pursuing a degree in history that most of the undergraduates came to formally teach the hisrtory of the west indies; this meant that for some, what they learnt came as a 12 the west indies federation was a brief political association of states in the caribbean. the association was endorsed by the british colonial office as it allowed for better management strategies in the sense that the funds would be allocated to one authority as opposed to several governments in the caribbean basin. 13 phillip sherlock was involved in the irvine commission, developed the mona and st. augustine campuses and ended as was vice-chancellor of the uwi. rex nettleford revelation. moreover, a decision by the university council to conduct a survey course in west indian history became ‘compulsory for the majority of undergraduates attending any of the university campuses’. in 1969 this was incorporated into the syllabus for the general degree (1969, p. 61). most students who graduated from the u.w.i. could therefore be expected to have a ‘general knowledge of the historical development of the west indies’.14 the university continued in its effort to sensitise students to contemporary issues in caribbean society, by offering a compulsory module in caribbean civilisation to undergraduate students in the faculties of social, medical and pure and applied sciences (the university of the west indies, n. d.). according to zeleza (2009), universities, at least in the african context, went through what he refers to as the “golden era”, following independence. during this period, which lasted from the 1950s to the late 1970s, there was much excitement owing to the establishment of new universities, and the expansion of old ones; this operated to underpin a triumph of african nationalism (2009, p. 112).15 as mamdani (2019) acknowledges, the development of higher education in africa is basically a post-independence phenomenon. with the exception of south and north africa, where the number of universities founded in the colonial period could be counted on two hands (2019, p. 23). for example, there was only the ibadan university in nigeria at the end of the colonial period; however by 2012, the country boasted 118 universities (ejiogu & sule, 2012, p. 259). having a national university was considered as much a hallmark of national independence as having a flag, an anthem, a central bank and a currency (mamdani, 2019). we can therefore say that efforts were made was an alumnus and pro-vice chancellor at the mona campus. 14 books written by west indian history teachers were required course books such as the making of the west indies and a short history of the west indies. 15 the golden era started especially in the 1950s with the independence of ghana in 1951. prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 9 4(1) to “massify” higher education and to increase access for african students after independence. for paul zeleza, there were also vigorous efforts to ‘decolonize the disciplines, to “strip” them of their eurocentric cognitive and civilizational conceits’ (zeleza, 2009, p. 112). following independence, africa sought to promote the dreams of african nationalism: decolonisation and new developments emerged and replaced the old regional universities, which were dismantled and reconstituted as national universities. it is interesting to note that the universities created after independence were much larger in size than their colonial predecessors, broader in their missions and they expanded their disciplinary and curricula offerings (2009, p. 116). the new universities were designed as ‘engines of socio-economic transformation and centres of epistemic emancipation, as the african intelligentsia readily rediscovered and rewrote their peoples histories and humanity so cruelly seized and denied by europe’ (2009, p. 116). there was a complicity between governments and academics, which unabigously endorsed this emancipatory mission; for example, ghana’s first president, kwame nkrumah, opened the institute of african studies at the universities of ghana in 1962 (allman, 2013). however, the euphoria of nationalism and decolonisation was apparently challenged by what zeleza (2009) terms as the crisis era. the crisis era was characterized by the erosion of the universities’ institutional and intellectual standing due in part to pecuniary or political crises. for example, in independent nigeria, a civil war broke out in may 1967, after the declaration of an independent biafra (arnold, 1999). in nigeria, after the civil war had ended, the universities still enjoyed visits and communication with the inter-university council. kolinsky (1985) informs us that nigerian vicechancellors wanted the continued advice of the council on financial and administrative aspects of university planning. dr. oluwasanmi even indicated that help with the recruitment of members of staff was important to ahmadu bella university and to his own university. hargreaves also notes that there was pressure to maintain (what a nigerian commission of 1960 called) the “intellectual gold standard”, which colonial university teachers, african and expatriate, treated as an over-riding priority (1979, p. 108). in ghana, the crisis era came about following the rising tide of austerity – or neo-liberal economic restructuring – and authoritarianism, which became especially pronounced from the late 1970s through to the late 1990s. to the overseers of the state, the university had not only lost its mission but it was becoming a potentially dangerous site populated by volatile educated youths and devious academics who revelled in purveying “foreign ideology” and “irrelevant” theoretical research (2009, p. 116). zeleza noted that in the 80s, there was a rise in statesanctioned anti-intellectualism which found succour in the “strange gospel from the world bank, that africa needed primary schools rather universities”. there was then the influx of expatriates and the concomitant emigration of skilled labour, including academics (idem). as zeleza notes, the liberatory mission of the post-colonial university gave way to imperatives of survival, as middle-class comforts slipped from the lives of academics in many countries. moreover, diminishing resources, combined with mounting state tyranny, led to the deterioration of research, teaching and physical infrastructures; the demoralization of faculty and students; and a social devaluation of the status of academics and the scholarly enterprise. this ultimately led to a greater brain drain; all challenges that post-colonial african societies would have to contend with. 4. idealizing the post-colonial university in more recent times, efforts to develop higher education in post-colonial africa ensued when in 2008 the african union commission sanctioned the creation of the pan-african university (pau). this was in response to the recurring question of ‘why’ african universities existed; and, for example, should they be seen as western universities in africa (ndlovu, 2014, p. 138). the issue of the identity of an african university was crucial as it had a bearing on the nature of graduates that universities produced, and was of utmost concern with regard to the ongoing eurocentrism in the majority of universities in africa (2014, p. 141). the pau would therefore be a way for prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 10 4(1) africans to not be mere passive spectators in the making of university education in africa by undertaking the quest for pan-african education. the pau came to be in five geographic sub-regions of africa, namely: northern africa, western africa, eastern africa, central northern africa and southern africa. however, ndlovu (2014) identifies a number of drawbacks to the pau, which serve to undermine the idea of a postcolonial university. for example, ndlovu notes that pau has institutes located in existing universities in africa; these have been characterised by patricia collins as having a ‘eurocentric, masculinist, knowledge-validation process, whereby certain types of knowledge, theories and methodologies are validated, while others are invalidated’.16 ndlovu suggests that these institutes have inherited eurocentric knowledge and validation processes, which tend to marginalise african world views and aspirations. secondly, the pau is also criticised as the result of its prioritisation of particular programmes of study. ndlovu (2014) refers to the southern african mode of the university has a model that has chosen to focus on “space sciences’, a curricular attention which is thought to be misplaced and out of context. ndlovu recommends that focus should be placed on programmes that could bridge socio-economic inequalities or bring about a better understanding of them. thirdly, ndlovu (2014) asserts that by recieving external funding from germany and sweden, the university does not generate educational programmes that serve developmental needs, interests, and aspirations of indigenous communities in africa. furthermore, in not adopting an ideological position that committed to the recruitment of teaching and research staff with an interest in the decolonisation of knowledge in africa, the pau inadvertantly supported a eurocentric model of the university (ndlovu, 2018, p. 105). in order for the pau to transform the heavily eurocentric model of education thorughout africa, it is ‘not enough to recruit africans: it needs to consciously exalt the african knowledge that has for so long been subalternate through recruiting afrocentric scholars, 16 as seen in (small 2012:71) 17 the caribbean region boasts many universities, colleges, and institutes. the university of the west indies as well as opening up space for indigenous knowledge in the curriculum’ (ndlovu, 2014, p. 143). in the caribbean, the higher education landscape has evolved to include a wide variety of providers.17 notwithstanding, a few elements have been identified for further focus and improvement for post-colonial caribbean universities to consider. for example, peters (2001, p. 51), asserts that universities in the caribbean should be ‘cognizant of global and international economic trends’, and these should be instructive in terms of designing programmes that will ‘enable caribbean students to develop the necessary knowledge and skills that will make them worthy and competitive players in the global market place’. moreover, peters asserts that ‘the tertiary education sector will need to be dynamic, reoriented and restructured [for the] students who come through our national and regional institutions’ (peters, 2001, p. 51). furthermore, it would appear that postcolonial universities in the caribbean will need to pave the way toward financial independence as higher education systems are ‘adversely affected due to insufficient funding and minimal resources’ (browne & shen, 2017, p. 176). for example, in the eastern caribbean tuition cost is relatively too high for the locals of the country in which the university is located ranging from 20,000 usd to 180,000 usd depending on the type and level of programme (browne & shen, 2017, p. 176). this therefore negatively impacts the number of students who can easily access higher education and leave debt-free. moreover, it is also a challenge that caribbean universities have a heritage of importing foreign academic staff. as browne & shen (2017, p. 176) note, ‘the countries have to import foreign professors and auxiliary to work in the country, to meet the basic requirements for these institutions and also the private universities are furnished form abroad. persons from the countries are employed, but on a very small scale, which means reduced spending power for the local worker’. moreover, universities in the post-colonial caribbean still have to contend with now has campuses and offices throughout the region and there are also other public universities including private ones. prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 11 4(1) new external influences coming from north america and europe as they develop in a globalized world.18 this influence tends to also be indirect in the sense that it is transmitted not predominantly from an overarching colonial power like in the past but through a more intangible and almost inconspicuous manner. as de wit and escala (2019) inform us, ‘many of the elite from each country in the region have been trained in the higher education systems of these colonial powers and one can still observe an outward mobility trend to these colonial states and dependence on their funding, teaching and learning, structures and cultures and their quality assurance processes’. based on the above positions, one can therefore theorize that a post-colonial university should strive to be three things: independent, relevant and indigenous. the idea of an independent university has already been put forth by beloff (1974) but from another perspective than that which is advanced in this paper. professor max beloff was giving the edmund rich memorial lecture in britain and was proposing the idea of the independent university – for british universities. then, professor beloff was referring to the fact that higher education was still a prerogative of the state which provided funding through the university grant commission, as opposed to in the united states where universities were being privatized and thus could pursue their own funding ventures (beloff, 1974, p. 506). for the purposes of this paper, the word “independent” here not only means that the institution has acquired university status with degree-conferring powers; but also in terms of its capacity to fulfil its mandate without relying on an overarching colonial structure. we can recall that this was the case where colonial universities were associates of british universities as part of a quality-assurance rationale. moreover, during periods of political and financial crisis following independence we also showed that universities in africa as well as in the caribbean, there was still reliance on assistance from the “motherland”. an independent university would depend on its country 18 the development of short cycle programmes is an example of that influence. having a robust economic situation and also give high priority to higher education in order to fulfil the needs of its population with regards to tertiary education. post-colonial universities should also be relevant where its programmes and curricula are concerned, equipping the students to face the challenges of their socio-economic realities. for example, in the caribbean the economic and social context has changed from what it was several years ago; there has been a shift from traditional agriculture to more service-based economies among other industries (rhiney, 2016). the post-colonial university should also consider the background, profiles, and realities of the students that they serve. one can make the link between this criterion of relevance with the ongoing #liberatemydegree campaign. this campaign was launched by the national union of students in scotland in 2016 and advocates for a more studentled and student-centred approach to curriculum design. it aims to combat ‘rigid curricula and assessment methods that privilege certain groups while systematically shutting out those most marginalized from education: women, working class, disables, lgbt+, black students and those with caring responsibilities’ (nus connect, 2016). finally, a post-colonial university should also be an indigenous one – both in terms of its staff composition and the promotion locally produced knowledge. from the african context, wright (1992) argues that one wrong that must be righted through reform (following independence), is the neglect of african writing in school and university syllabi. it is imperative that indigenous works be brought to the fore, so that local students can read and study the literature of their own country and of africa. for peter (2019), among other things, the postcolonial university should seek to decolonise the university, its curricula, and rehabilitate its traditional knowledge base, to restore indigenous languages, histories and knowledge systems (peters 2019). we can also make note of rossouw (2018) who asserts that much more should be done to enable university students in postprism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 12 4(1) colonial societies to study in their first languages (2018, p. 73). 5. conclusion the aim of this paper was to identify some of the ideals that universities in the post-independence era could pursue in a context where much focus is being turned the injustices of colonial heritage. it has done so by establishing the antecedents to the establishment of universities in the british colonies, and looking at some of the reforms that have been undertaken following independence. with the example of pau, it showed that even universities (which, by definition, were not colonial universities), can still be vulnerable to the vestiges and impacts of the colonial experience as well as its lingering external influence. furthermore, after synthesising existing knowledge of the higher education systems as well as the social and economic situations of former british colonies, the article posits that independence, relevance and indigenisation are ideals that postcolonial universities should either aspire to or embark upon. it is hoped that this paper can be used a theoretical template which could be used for further research on other aspects which, although very much deserving of further attention, were not addressed in this paper. 6. disclosure statement the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 7. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) thorpe (2022) prism 13 4(1) 8. references alexander, j. 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and trends of student participation david chinofunga1 philemon chigeza2 subhashni taylor3 1 college of arts, social work and education, james cook university, cairns, australia david.chinofunga@my.jcu.edu.au 2 college of arts, social work and education, james cook university, cairns, australia philemon.chigeza@jcu.edu.au 3 college of arts, social work and education, james cook university, cairns, australia subhashni.taylor@jcu.edu.au received: 04/12/2020 accepted for publication: 15/06/2021 published: 06/11/2021 abstract in the state of queensland in australia, years 11 and 12 students can opt to study calculus based or non-calculus based mathematics. calculus based mathematics subjects are a prerequisite for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem), which has been identified as critically important for current and future productivity by the australian government. the objective of this study was to identify broad trends in senior queensland students’ participation in calculus and non-calculus based mathematics purely from a statistical viewpoint using a large data set from the queensland curriculum and assessment authority (qcaa). to this end, trends in years 11 and 12 students’ participation in calculus based mathematics b and c, and non-calculus based mathematics a and prevocational mathematics between 2010 and 2019 was investigated. the qcaa data was analysed using quantitative methods to identify trends in student participation in the various mathematics subject options. the data included number of schools, location, gender, indigenous or non-indigenous, residence status and number of students in different options. the results indicated that more male students opted for mathematics b and c compared to females, and not all schools offered all options. keywords: senior high school mathematics, student participation, calculus & non-calculus 1. introduction mathematics has been described as a critical filter for future academic and career options and participation in advanced mathematics subjects in high school paves the way for high-status careers (watt et al., 2017). furthermore, advanced mathematics is central in the study of many university courses including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) courses. ‘mathematics is a key science for the future, through its enabling role for science, engineering and technology. this is illustrated by dramatic advances in communications, bioinformatics, the understanding of uncertainty, and https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401216 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:david.chinofunga@my.jcu.edu.au mailto:philemon.chigeza@jcu.edu.au mailto:subhashni.taylor@jcu.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0262-3039 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9964-0988 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1624-0901 prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 73 4(1) dealing with large data sets’ (lemaire, 2003, p.1). students need a strong foundation of mathematical skills, especially at secondary school, to make a successful transition from school to studying stem disciplines at university (lyakhova & neate, 2019). consequently, government programs often target mathematics as one important part of stem education that will lead to better jobs, innovation, improved economy, and greater global leadership (peters et al., 2017). importantly, the post covid-19 economic reboot will require students with advanced mathematics skills as demand for skilled stem professions will increase (vernon, 2020). the important contribution that mathematics makes towards stem based careers makes it essential to understand students’ participation in different options the subject offers, especially options that are prerequisites for stem courses. the technology driven modern world requires a deep understanding of mathematics, hence equipping citizens with advanced mathematics skills becomes a right (centre for curriculum redesign, 2013). students who take calculus based or advanced mathematics in countries such as australia, united states of america and england are better positioned to enrol in stem related courses at tertiary level (carnevale et al., 2011; lyakhova & neate, 2019). advanced mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding of distinct concepts are important for further study in fields where mathematics plays a key enabling role (maltas & prescott, 2014). calculus based or advanced mathematics as prerequisites of tertiary stem courses have a direct impact on university enrolments and the diverse opportunities students have after high school. therefore, it is essential to look at the participation rates of senior students in different mathematics curricula. analyses of student participation trends in different mathematics options can be confounded by the diverse classifications of mathematics subjects. the following sections will discuss how mathematics is classified internationally followed by the classifications used in australia. this will be followed by a discussion of global and australian trends in student participation in senior school mathematics with a final focus on trends in the state of queensland, which is the context of this study. 2. mathematics classifications internationally senior high school mathematics curricula differ from country to country. some countries follow a national curriculum where all students engage with the same mathematics curriculum. in the united kingdom (uk), students who progress to a-level studies and opt for mathematics have an option of obtaining as (advanced subsidiary) qualifications after a year or the full a-level (a2) or further mathematics (fm) at the end of two years (noyes & adkins, 2016). new core mathematics qualifications were introduced in 2015 as an alternative pathway for students who have passed gcse mathematics but want to pursue courses that do not demand advanced mathematics (lee, 2016). countries that have a national curriculum classify all mathematics options under a common nomenclature. this eliminates complications in defining subject classifications when undertaking analysis of national trends in student participation. federal countries with autonomous states that determine their own curricula may not have a consistent framework of naming mathematics subjects. for example, in the united states of america (usa), some states even allow the education structure to be decided at local level. as a result, compiling these data into nationally consistent and coherent information is problematic as nomenclature is not consistent between state jurisdictions. thus, subjects with very similar course content can have different titles and possibly be classified as belonging to different learning areas. national centre for education statistics [nces], (2007) cited in rasmussen et al (2011) classified different mathematics subjects in order of complexity as: algebra i or plane geometry, algebra ii, algebra iii/trigonometry or analytical geometry, pre-calculus, calculus and advanced placement (ap). clarity around the categorisation of mathematics options offered in different states is an important prerequisite for an informative analysis of student participation trends in this subject as the criteria used for categorisation can be contested. prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 74 4(1) 3. mathematics classification in australia in australia, senior school curricula is the responsibility of states and territories. this means that the classification and scope of the mathematics subjects can be different from state to state. researchers in australia have differing views on the way that mathematics subjects ought to be classified. some researchers only take into consideration the opportunities that the subject offers postsecondary while others consider subject content as a basis for their classification. this prompted some scholars to meet in 2004 where they resolved that the categorisation of subjects and compilation of participation data be done alongside each other (barrington & brown, 2014). table 1 shows the different classifications researchers have used in analysing mathematics subjects. mathematics subjects are classified into three categories: basic or elementary or low-level, intermediate and advanced or high-level (kennedy et al., 2014). basic mathematics covers basic mathematics skills and is terminal, intermediate mathematics is considered useful in pursuing courses in which mathematics content is minimal while advanced mathematics is a prerequisite of university courses in which mathematics plays an integral role (dekkers & malone, 2000). thus, entry level (see table 1) is part of elementary mathematics which include mathematics subjects that are considered as a numeracy option for tertiary admission (kennedy et al., 2014). classification of mathematics subjects table 1researchers’ classifications of australian high school mathematics subjects (kennedy et al., 2014 p 36). the curriculum diversity and options offered in different countries reinforces the idea that mathematics should prepare students for different career choices, highlighting the ‘critical filter’ tag that has been used to describe the subject (watt et al., 2017). as countries adjust or change mathematics curricula, their objective should be to increase students’ participation, especially in advanced or calculus based options as these provide students with diverse and better career opportunities. increased mathematics choices naturally means different subjects compete for students. as a result, an analysis of the trends in student participation may shed some light on the distribution of students among subject options. 4. international trends in student participation in mathematics subjects global trends in student participation in senior school mathematics indicate that students’ enrolment in calculus based mathematics subjects is either declining or have reached a stagnation point. for example, participation in advanced mathematics in countries such as germany, ireland, netherlands, russia and spain is 15% or less (hodgen et al., 2010b). correspondingly, south africa has also declined in prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 75 4(1) calculus based mathematics by 16% between 2015 and 2019 (businesstech, 2020). on the other hand, in japan, south korea, new zealand, singapore and taiwan, approximately 31% of upper secondary students choose to study advanced mathematics and are regarded as countries with the highest share of students’ participation in advanced mathematics (hodgen, 2013; hodgen et al., 2010b). similarly, the usa witnessed a general increase in advanced mathematics enrolments until 2005 when calculus and ap (advanced placement) had a combined rate of 23% participation, thereafter there was stagnation (hodgen et al., 2010b; national science board, 2018). in the united kingdom (uk), following the introduction of curriculum 2000, a steady increase in students opting for mathematics at a-levels was noted between 2006 (7.9%) and 2015 (12.7%) (hodgen et al., 2010b; noyes & adkins, 2016). however, mathematics still remains a minority subject and females are less represented in a2 (hodgen et al., 2010b). 5. trends in student participation in mathematics subjects in australia available national trends in australia focus on year 12 enrolment statistics from all states and territories which are generally categorised as elementary, intermediate and advanced. concerns have been raised about students’ participation in intermediate and advanced mathematics options. for example, australia’s former chief scientist, professor ian chubb, expressed his concerns about the lack of appetite by students in studying higher levels of mathematics in year 11 and 12 (evershed & safi, 2014). “intermediate and especially, advanced mathematics students are essential for a strong science, research and innovation capacity. the statistics at hand indicate that enrolment numbers in these areas are shrinking and students are instead electing to take elementary mathematics.” (australian council of deans of science, 2007, p.2). elementary/entry level/low-level mathematics student participation in elementary mathematics has maintained a significant and steady growth in enrolments from 1990 to 2012 with the exception of 2001 (barrington & brown, 2013). by 2010, 51% of all mathematics enrolment was in elementary mathematics, increasing to 52% in 2011 and was maintained at that proportion until 2015 (barrington & evans, 2014; barrington & evans, 2016). in 1990 around 51855 students opted for low-level mathematics but by 2015 about 117 000 students were enrolled in the subject which is a 125.6% increase (dekkers & malone, 2000; barrington and evans, 2016). kennedy et al. (2014) also reported an increase in participation rates in entry level mathematics between 1994 (38%) and 2012 (49%). the differences in participation rates in elementary mathematics reported by the various researchers can be attributed to the different categorisations used in their analysis. however, it is clear in both trends that there was a significant increase in participation in elementary mathematics. on the other hand, female dominance in elementary mathematics declined between 1990 (56.7%) and 1999 (52.4%) then further down to almost parity with male students after 2000 (dekkers & malone, 2000; forgasz, 2006b). the ratio of participation by 2012 was 11 females to 10 males (kennedy et al., 2018) and in 2015 the percentage was approximately 51% to 49% in favour of females (barrington & evans, 2016). from the different categorisations presented, these trends show that the enrolment in elementary mathematics has become fairly balanced between males and females from early to mid-2000. intermediate mathematics slight variations in participation rates in intermediate mathematics have been reported by different researchers due to their differing categorisation of this option. for example, students’ participation rates in intermediate mathematics has been declining for the period 1995 (27.3%) to 2015 (19.2%) with the exception of 2002 and 2014 (barrington & brown, 2014; barrington and evans, 2014; 2016; forgasz, 2006a). ainley et al. (2008) report slightly different participation rates between 2001 (34.7%) and 2007 (30.6%). kennedy et al. (2014) also report varying rates of decline in participation between 1994 (38%) and 2012 (27%). however, the findings from the various researchers point to a similar trend of a steady decline in students’ participation in intermediate mathematics from midprism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 76 4(1) 1900s to 2012. furthermore, the trends show that males have dominated participation in intermediate mathematics although females are not far behind (kennedy et al., 2014; barrington & brown, 2014). advanced/high-level mathematics participation rates in advanced mathematics declined between 1990 (24%) and 1999 (16%) (dekkers & malone, 2000). kennedy et al., (2014) reported a similar decline between 1994 (16%) and 2012 (9%). the period 2001 to 2007 saw student participation numbers declining from 26216 to 22999 respectively (ainley, 2008). since 2007, raw enrolment data have been fairly static between 20 000 to 21 000 until 2012 (kennedy et al., 2014). one in 10 students in 2013 studied advanced mathematics in year 12 (mater et al., 2014). with the exception of 2003, 2008 and 2014 participation rates from 1995 to 2015 continued to decline until it stabilised at around 9.5% from 2012 (barrington & evans, 2014; 2016). though researchers used different categories of classification of mathematics subjects, their findings were consistent in that advanced mathematics participation has been declining over the last few decades. female participation rates in advanced mathematics showed a steady decline from 41.1% in 1990 to 38.9% in 1999 (dekkers & malone, 2000). the ratio of male and female participation in the late 1990s was six females to 10 males which declined to 14 females to 25 males by 2012 (kennedy et al., 2014). the trend continued in 2013 as the rate of female participation was 6.7% compared to 12.7% of boys (barrington & brown, 2014). by 2015 the female participation rate was at 6.9% while the male rate was 12.6% (barrington & evans, 2016). just 6.6% of girls participated in advanced mathematics in 2013 and it represents a 23% decline from 2004 (mater et al., 2014). a clear dominance by males in advanced mathematics has characterised participation in this category. research indicates that in australia, calculus based mathematics is becoming less popular with most students, as indicated by the low number and proportion of year 12 students studying this option in 2013 compared to 1995 (barrington & brown, 2014). in fact, student participation rates in both intermediate and advanced mathematics steadily declined to around 19.2 % and 9.6% respectively in 2015. on the other hand, elementary mathematics participation rate has shown a steady increase over the past decade stabilising at 52% for the past few years. these trends were consistent in the majority of states in australia especially for calculus based subjects. the decline in participation rates in calculus based mathematics is a cause for concern (engineers australia, 2016). 6. trends in student participation in mathematics subjects in queensland the latest literature of trends in students’ participation in queensland was part of ainley et al’s (2008) research on national trends in advanced mathematics which was 12 years ago. this is in contrast to states such as new south wales where more current research has been undertaken to analyse trends in student participation in mathematics (jaremus et al., 2018). from 2008 to 2019 queensland offered mathematics a, b, c and prevocational mathematics which were replaced by general, methods, specialist and essential mathematics respectively (queensland tertiary admissions centre [qtac], 2018). mathematics a is considered elementary mathematics, mathematics b – intermediate and mathematics c – advanced (forgasz; 2006b). mathematics c is a recommended companion subject to mathematics b and they offer more diverse and better career opportunities (queensland studies authority [qsa], 2014). although mathematics c provides an additional preparation, both mathematics b and c cater for students interested in university courses with high demands in mathematics such as science, medicine, mining, engineering, information technology, mathematics, finance, business and economics (qcaa, 2008). this is different from the categories that have been used in previous analyses of participation trends nationally as only mathematics c was regarded as a prerequisite of such courses. mathematics a is for students who want to pursue studies and training in courses with moderate demand in mathematics such as carpentry, plumbing, auto mechanics, tourism, hospitality and administration (qcaa, 2008). prevocational prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 77 4(1) mathematics can be classified as background elementary mathematics (kennedy et al., 2014) as it does not prepare students for any further tertiary studies hence it is a terminal option. prevocational mathematics was never considered in any previous participation trends analysis hence there is no literature on the subject. the following section includes discussion of raw data as well as percentages to identify research gaps due to the limited availability of literature on queensland. raw enrolment numbers of mathematics participation in year 12 increased marginally from 46517 in 2000 to 47465 in 2004 apart from a decline of 694 students in 2001 (forgasz, 2006b). since early 1990s to 2005 there was a significant decline in the proportion of year 12 students studying mathematics b and c in queensland. however, participation rates seemed to have stabilised by 2013 after a marginal increase (qsa, 2014). elementary mathematics a marginal increase from 66.0% in 2000 to 67.5% in 2004 characterised students’ participation in elementary mathematics (forgasz, 2006b). raw year 12 data show that student participation increased from 26 298 in year 2000 to 27415 in 2004 which was an increase of 4.2% (forgasz, 2006b). females dominated participation year by year from 2000 up to 2006 (mcphan et al., 2008). between 2000 and 2004, male participation rates trailed female as male enrolments increased by 3.5% compared to 4.9% for females (forgasz, 2006b). in addition, female enrolment compared to all year 12 females increased from 67.3% to 69.8% while male enrolment as a proportion of all year 12 males was stable at around 65% in the same period (forgasz, 2006b). intermediate mathematics a steady decline in participation was witnessed from 1992 to 2008 which was followed by a steady but marginal increase until 2013 (qsa, 2014). the mean percentage enrolment rate among the year 12 cohorts was 41.5%, however, intermediate mathematics (mathematics b) participation rate fell by 2.1% for the period 2000-2004 (forgasz, 2006a, 2006b). female participation rate declined by 4.8% while male participation rate increased by 0.3% from 2000 to 2004 (forgasz, 2006a, 2006b). in the same period both male and female enrolment rates as proportions of their year 12 gender declined, with male rate declining from 46.2% to 44.7% and females from 39.3% to 37.0% (forgasz, 2006b). advanced mathematics a decline in participation in advanced mathematics was witnessed from the early 1990s until 2000 (ainley et al., 2008). participation rates declined from 15.8% in 1991 to 7.8 % in 2007 even though there were marginal increases in 1995 and 2004 (ainley et al., 2008). from year 2000 to 2003 raw data show a decline in enrolment from 3242 to 3175 respectively, however a significant increase to 3430 was welcomed in 2004 (forgasz, 2006b). the sum of all advanced mathematics enrolments from year 2000 to 2004 was only 8% of all year 12 students (forgasz, 2006b). however, the increase in enrolment have been credited to the ‘bonus’ points system queensland offered to students which incentivised students to enrol (maltas & prescott, 2014).the bonus points entails a student with a pass in mathematics c to receive two adjustments to boost the selection mark for tertiary courses. between 2000 and 2004, female participation rate in advanced mathematics was slightly lower than male participation with females at 5.5% and males at 6% (forgasz, 2006b). in fact, percentage rates of participation were fairly stable for both genders over the same period, although male dominance has not been challenged (forgasz, 2006b). no analysis of trends in student participation in mathematics options has been undertaken for queensland since ainley et al’s (2008) study from 12 years ago. this constitutes a significant gap in literature which this study aims to fill by reporting on an analysis of student participation trends for the period 2010 to 2019 for queensland, australia. 7. study methods and results the study investigated students’ options and trends of participation in mathematics a, b, c and prevocational mathematics between 2010 and 2019 using data from queensland curriculum and prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 78 4(1) assessment authority (qcaa). quantitative methods were applied to analyse trends of student options. consent to use the data in this study was provided by qcaa. the data included number of schools, gender, indigenous or non-indigenous and number of students in different options. table 2 below shows raw data of student numbers in the year levels from 2010 to 2019. raw data showing student numbers table 2: raw data showing student numbers to perform the analysis, a descriptive quantitative method was employed using microsoft excel. microsoft excel offers a suite of statistical analysis functions that can be used to run descriptive statistics, to perform several different and useful inferential statistical tests and process data through using formulas (abbott, 2011). descriptive statistics and graphical representations of data can be useful when making comparisons between sets (carr, 2008). descriptive statistics (e.g. calculation of the measures of central tendency such as the mean, mode and median), were used to analyse the data using the microsoft excel software. according to aldrich and rodriguez (2013) multiline graphs can be used to identify trend changes in one or more variables over time. the following section describes the trend changes in: (1) average percentage enrolment; (2) schools not offering calculus based mathematics; (3) gender enrolment in mathematics a, b and c; (4) indigenous students enrolment; and (5) dropout rates in mathematics b and c. the average percentage enrolment an analysis of the average percentage of student enrolment in mathematics a, b, c and prevocational mathematics between 2010 and 2019 was conducted. the analysis ranked the mathematics enrolment in the different options as follows: mathematics a: 42.55% at year 11 and 43.44% at year 12 mathematics b: 30.41% at year 11 and 29.53% at year 12 mathematics c: with 7.82% at year 11 and 7.62% at year 12 prevocational mathematics (pvm): 19.22% at year 11 and 19.21% at year 12 figure 1 below is a graph of student enrolment in all the four mathematics options: mathematics a, b, c and prevocational mathematics between 2010 and 2019. the mathematics a, b, c and prevocational syllabi terminated at the end of 2019 hence year 11 data ended in 2018. figure 1: enrolment summary from 2010 to 2019 schools without students participating in calculus based mathematics figure 2 below is a graph of the number of schools that did not register any student for mathematics b and c between 2010 and 2019. the yearly average number of schools that did not have students prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 79 4(1) participating in calculus based mathematics, which is mathematics b is 13 and mathematics c is 83. the difference between schools offering mathematics a and b or c gave the number of schools that did not have students participating in calculus based mathematics. figure 2: schools without students participating in calculus based mathematics from 2010 to 2019 gender enrolment in mathematics a, b and c table 3 shows the average percentage enrolment in mathematics a, b and c from 2010 to 2019 in the gender groups. the table also shows the gender distribution in calculus based (mathematics b and c) and non-calculus mathematics a. table 3: average percentage gender enrolment in mathematics a, b and c from 2010 to 2019 the results show that male enrolments in calculus based mathematics was higher compared to females. the average percentage of males enrolled in mathematics b compared to the total mathematics b enrolment was 52.54% in year 11 and 52.37% in year 12.this means for every 13 males enrolled in mathematics b, there were 12 females. similarly, in mathematics c males constituted 64.71% of the year 11 cohort and 64.89% in year 12. for every 13 males enrolled for mathematics c, there were 7 females. in contrast, females dominated participation in the noncalculus option of mathematics a. at year 11, females surpassed males by an average percentage of 6.78% which increased to 7.4% at year 12. there was a slight increase in the ratio from every 12 males to 13 females in year 11 to 6 males to 7 females in year 12. indigenous students enrolment figure 3 shows trends in indigenous students’ enrolment in the mathematics options. a large number of indigenous students enrolled in pre vocational mathematics with a very small percentage in mathematics c. table 4 below shows how indigenous students are distributed in the four options. the percentages were calculated as a total of the state indigenous student population. figure 3: percentage enrolment of indigenous students from 2010 to 2019 year 11 year 12 mathematics a (39.05%) mathematics a (40.58%) mathematics b (10.33%) mathematics b (10.53%) prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 80 4(1) mathematics c (1.70%) mathematics c (1.76%) pre vocational (48.91%) pre vocational (47.13%) table 4: average percentages of distribution of indigenous students from 2010 to 2019 dropout rates in mathematics b and c figure 4 shows the dropout rate in mathematics b and c for all students, while figure 5 shows the dropout rate according to gender. figure 6 shows the percentage drop out of indigenous versus nonindigenous students. additionally, the trends of students’ movement between mathematics subject options can also be determined through data analysis. the availability of both year 11 and 12 data allowed tracking of changes in students’ enrolment as they moved from one year to the next. figure 4: dropout rate in mathematics b and c for all students from 2010 to 2019 consistently, mathematics b had more students dropping out as they moved from year 11 to year 12. on average about 688 students dropped from mathematics b every year compared to 108 students in mathematics c. this means that the dropout from mathematics c, although averaging 2.35%, is calculated on a smaller population than for mathematics b with an average of 3.77%. for the period under consideration, 2010 to 2019, a total of 3372 females and 4582 males dropped out of calculus based mathematics. figure 5: dropout rate according to gender from 2010 to 2019 a larger percentage of males dropped out of mathematics b and c with an average rate of 4.06% in mathematics b and 2.38% in mathematics c. contrastingly, females were in the minority in both options but their dropout rate was 3.45% in mathematics b and 2.32% in mathematics c. figure 6: dropout of indigenous versus non-indigenous students from 2010 to 2019 the average dropout for indigenous students was 7.03% for mathematics b and 3.71% for mathematics c. this is despite the fact that indigenous students comprise a very small percentage of enrolments at any year level. in comparison non-indigenous students had an average dropout percentage of 3.72% for mathematics b and 2.24% for mathematics c. raw data show a total of 225 indigenous students dropped out of calculus based mathematics from 2010 to 2019. prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 81 4(1) 8. discussion findings from this research indicate that more male students opted for mathematics b and c than female students. as highlighted in the data, an average of 47.5 % and 35.2 % of all mathematics b and c respectively in years 11 and 12 are females. this is in agreement with ainley et al., (2008), forgasz, (2006a), forgasz, (2006b) earlier findings. this indicates that fewer females opted for calculus based mathematics compared to males for the period 2010 to 2019. the percentage of females choosing advanced mathematics is a concern. on the contrary, the dropout rate of females from these two subjects is 3.45% for mathematics b and 2.31% for mathematics c, which is less than the dropout rate for males which is 4.06% for mathematics b and 2.38% for mathematics c. this smaller percentage of female dropout in mathematics b and c suggests that female dropout rate could be further reduced if female enrolment is improved. this indicates that with sustained improvements in female enrolments, the female students have the potential to surpass male students in mathematics b and c. females do not prefer competitive environments and avoid uncertainties, but rather opt for more definite settings (niederle & vesterlund, 2010). consequently, the higher enrolments of females in mathematics a from 2010 to 2019 in years 11 and 12 indicate that female students opt for choices where they feel that they will perform well. female students must be encouraged to choose options that offer more stem opportunities and to perform well in those options. this supports the need for educators to develop strategies that improve female enrolment in these subjects in year 11. while results of trends analysis cannot explain why fewer females choose mathematics b and c, a closer focus on not only academic but social and cultural factors that enhance female students’ participation in mathematics b and c is essential and this could be a focus of future research. mathematics is compulsory in queensland for all students to achieve a queensland certificate of education (qce). students decide on which option to pursue in years 11 and 12. however, findings from this research indicate that not all schools offer all options. as suggested earlier, the australian council of deans of science in 2006 found that schools in more remote regions struggled to recruit qualified mathematics teachers. while this study did not focus on this issue, australian mathematical sciences institute [amsi] (2014) noted that this is a particular challenge for queensland schools. the data analysis exposed a worrying trend as a significant number of schools across queensland do not have students participating in mathematics b and c with a yearly average of 13 and 83 schools respectively. this is in agreement with the amsi (2014) which suggests that the number of schools able to provide advanced mathematics subjects at years 11 and 12 is steadily declining and with this the number of students studying advanced mathematics. additionally, the report suggests that shortages in specialised mathematics teachers has meant that around 40 percent of classes are taught without a qualified mathematics teacher. there is need to develop both material and human resources to empower classroom practise. this may contribute towards addressing the decline in student participation in mathematics b and c. it is also important to target these resources to enable schools that currently do not offer some of the mathematics options to be able to do so in the future. significantly, a declining trend of student participation in advanced mathematics subjects may also lead to fewer qualified mathematics teachers for the future. results showed that indigenous students opted mostly for mathematics a and prevocational mathematics. although indigenous students constitute a very small percentage of enrolments at any year level the dropout rate is worth noting. the average dropout of indigenous students was 7.03% for mathematics b and 3.71% for mathematics c. indigenous students are mostly enrolled in remote and regional schools which may explain the higher enrolments in prevocational mathematics compared to mathematics b and c. schools in remote regions have difficulty recruiting qualified mathematics teachers (australian council of deans, 2006). this situation may impact indigenous students more than other student groups. the study argues for an urgent focus to redress these trends and imbalances. the prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 82 4(1) data does not include socio economic status or cultural factors that might also be at play within such settings. additionally, lack of local stem career opportunities in remote and regional areas might also play a part in the mathematics subjects students opted for as well as high dropout. this is because graduating at high school may not necessarily translate to starting a high-status career. it would be worthwhile to conduct further research that investigates the views of indigenous students in remote and regional schools to shed further light on their experience of learning mathematics. however, this is beyond the scope of this study as the aim here is to identify broad trends purely from a statistical viewpoint. arresting the dropout rates in calculus based mathematics can be one way to improve the participation rate in the subjects. results show that a significant number of students who opted for the calculus based mathematics subjects in year 11 dropped the subjects and enrolled in non-calculus based mathematics in year 12. mathematics b had more students dropping out as they moved from year 11 to year 12. data also shows that more students opted for mathematics b or c at year 11 than in year 12, which was the opposite for mathematics a and prevocational. as suggested by mcphan et al. (2008), schools can arrest the decline and the high dropout rates in calculus based mathematics if they implement classroom practises that engage students and focus on improving student understanding of important concepts at every level of learning. arresting this decline becomes imperative to support students’ future participation in stem related careers. research is needed to develop teaching and learning strategies that increase student participation in calculus based mathematics subjects. encouraging all calculus based mathematics students to continue through to year 12 should be a priority. furthermore, to satisfy the demand in stem related careers, more needs to be done to increase participation in calculus based mathematics. one way of doing this would be to focus on improving enrolments in mathematics b, now mathematical methods in queensland’s new syllabus, which has an average percentage enrolment of 30.41% and offers almost the same opportunities as mathematics c, now specialist mathematics. thus, queensland has the potential to have more than 31% of all year 12 enrolments eligible for stem tertiary program and realising the goal of becoming stem champions. 9. conclusion this paper has investigated years 11 and 12 students’ options and trends of participation in calculus based and non-calculus based mathematics subjects between 2010 and 2019 using data from queensland curriculum and assessment authority. the paper has also looked at the central role that mathematics plays as an enabler of stem related courses and careers. the study found out that the mathematics trends at year 12 in queensland are consistent with previous research at national level. males dominated in mathematics b and c and fewer female students opted for the calculus based mathematics. indigenous students opted mostly for mathematics a and prevocational mathematics. however, a significant number of schools do not offer calculus based mathematics options and consequently do not have students participating in the calculus based mathematics. the study argues for an urgent focus to redress these trends and imbalances. the study calls for further research that focus not only on academic factors, but social and cultural factors that enhance all students’ participation in calculus based mathematics. prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 83 4(1) 10. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 11. acknowledgements the author(s) wish to acknowledge the queensland curriculum and assessment authority (qcaa) for the statistical data. 12. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) chinofunga, chigeza & taylor (2022) prism 84 4(1) 13. references abbott, m. l. 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https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/no-stem-success-without-way-more-mathematics/ https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/no-stem-success-without-way-more-mathematics/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0711-1 prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 8 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 school leadership and the civic nationalist turn: towards a typology of leadership styles employed by head teachers in their enactment of the prevent duty and the promotion of fundamental british values hazel bryan,1 lynn revell2 1 school of education & professional development, huddersfield university, huddersfield, uk (h.bryan@hud.ac.uk) 2 school of teacher education, canterbury christ church university, canterbury, uk (lynn.revell@canterbury.ac.uk) received: 22/11/2020 accepted for publication: 01/05/2021 published: 02/06/2021 abstract british schools are teeming with cultural richness and have long been at the heart of a celebration of heritage. however, the riots in the north of england in 2001 exposed fractures in community cohesion, a loss of economic opportunity for marginalised groups and a rise in far-right activity. the london bombings of 2005 revealed deep fault lines across communities and by 2012 the government had implemented the ‘hostile environment’ and immigration laws of 2014 and 2016 which saw citizens assume the mantle of ‘border enforcer.’ the windrush scandal of 2017 was an expression of this environment, and coupled with a resurgent nationalism, the uk voted to leave the eu. schools, nested within diverse communities across the country, negotiate societal issues and tensions in the quotidian spaces of the school day and head teachers, charged with ensuring the prevent duty is enacted and british values promoted, determine the ethos and approach of their respective schools. drawing on literature from school leadership, this research engages with head teachers in schools in england to explore the leadership styles they employ when enacting the requirements of the counter-terrorism and security act 2015 (home office, 2015) and the teachers’ standards (dfe, 2012) and navigating the civic nationalist turn. keywords: leadership; radicalisation; schools; civic nationalism; fundamental british values; prevent https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:h.bryan@hud.ac.uk mailto:lynn.revell@canterbury.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9903-8444 prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 9 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 1. introduction the policy document prevent (home office, 2011), the teachers’ standards (dfe, 2012) and the counterterrorism and security act (home office, 2015) represent a trinity of uk policy initiatives that require teachers to ensure that (fundamental) british values are promoted within and outside of school. in this way teachers have been positioned as both policy actors and policy subjects (ball, 2006). designed to counter a narrative of radicalisation and extremism, ofsted inspections of schools now encompass this aspect of the prevent duty and in this way, senior school leaders are required to ensure their teachers promote the values set out in the teachers’ standards (dfe, 2012). many academic discussions of fundamental british values have focused on the ways in which fundamental (british) values are being taught in the curriculum (farrell, 2016; maylor, 2016; ramsay, 2017; eltonchalcraft et al, 2017; bryan, 2017; revell & bryan, 2016) and on initial teacher education courses (revell et al, 2018). this research is the first study to investigate the ways in which school leaders navigate their way through the statutory requirements articulated in the prevent duty and the teachers’ standards (dfe, 2012) and to consider their practices in relation to contemporary leadership styles. in the uk there is a symbiotic relationship between school leadership and school improvement. this is as a consequence of government emphasis on standards in schools and, as such, senior school leaders have a particular role in ensuring targets are met, and this is systematised via ofsted inspections. this research represents the first empirical research into the relationship between education leadership styles and the requirement to promote fundamental (british) values articulated in the teachers’ standards (dfe, 2011). leadership became a focus for this study because it has a significant impact on the ethos, values and practices within any given school or schools. we identified leadership as a focus because the approach leaders employed would have a disproportionate effect on the way fbvs was understood, characterised and enacted in schools, and because this policy aligns to the standards agenda which is necessarily led and implemented by leaders. the timing of this research is significant, situated as it was in 2016/17. this was a unique moment in this policy narrative because whilst teachers and school leaders were statutorily required to implement and respond to fbvs, we interviewed them before many of the critical discourses with which we are now familiar had been developed. similarly, school leaders were responding instinctively to our questions – they too had a limited critical vocabulary or reference points with which to respond; this was demonstrated by one head teacher who, above all else, wanted to know what other head teachers had said in terms of their practice. today, some six years later, fbvs have been theorised and normalised, but at the time of interview, none of this was available – it was, in a sense, an evolving discourse and practice. since 2016, many academics have reflected on how this policy agenda was implemented. this article is unique, however, in capturing the voices of leaders mid-engagement with the policy at a time when academics, practitioners and policy makers were unsure of the impact these policies would have. this research therefore represents a brief but significant moment in the way we understand the trajectory of this policy enactment – we captured their views, perspectives and concerns as they responded instinctively, grappling with ideas before there was an inspection regime or a critical discourse around this policy. in this article we explore and chart the dominant theories around leadership in education as a precursor to situating the data in the wider context described above. the theories are significant because they relate to the way the role of the leader is understood and situated in schools and to the way school leaders understand their identity in relation to policy. 2. leadership theory leadership theory can be categorised in many ways. a helpful way in which to understand such complex theory is through modernist and postmodernist lenses. early leadership theory, namely transactional https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302203 prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 10 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) leadership theory, was particularly influential from 1950 to approximately 1990. then, what we now know to be a transition period in terms of leadership theory, gave expression to instructional leadership theory and situational leadership theory. from approximately 1990 (leithwood, 1998) the postmodern leadership theories of transformational leadership theory and distributed leadership theory evolved. a. transactional leadership infused with a modernist mono-narrative of the role of the leader and positivist influences that foregrounded quantitative approaches to efficiency and order, transactional leadership theory describes the exchange between leaders and followers within organisations. in this model, leaders reward the efforts of followers who strive to achieve organizational goals or increased productivity through financial or nonfinancial reward (bass & riggio, 2006). described initially by burns (1978), transactional leadership does not require leader and follower to share a common purpose and nor does it require moral assumptions on the part of the leader. timescales relating to transactional leadership are often short term as it has at its heart the notion of exchange, and as such, is likely to exist with the status quo, rather than seeking a change in culture. transactional leadership is successful when goals are understood, priorities are articulated and accepted and the methods employed are agreed. such a model is likely to achieve minimal success in the face of the need for significant organizational change requiring creative input and solutions. at the heart of transactional leadership are structure and order. examples of this style of leadership include the military or large organisations where regulations dominate and determine the ways in which goals are achieved. such an environment requires selfmotivated followers who excel in a structured environment. it has a focus on achieving the results of the organization where rewards and penalties measure success and where individual and group performance are monitored via performance reviews. in this way, transactional leadership is mechanistic rather than evolving or organic (smith & bell, 2011). transactional leaders operate well during times of crisis that require efficiency, short-term solutions, procedures and repetitive tasks. it is clear that transactional leadership rewards the follower in a oneway direction, and that creativity and initiative are not necessarily valued. however, this form of leadership is valuable where there are cultural or language differences, where tasks are repetitive, where consistency is essential and in times of crisis or emergency. b. situational leadership at its heart, situational leadership is flexible and adaptable. rather than focus on a particular skill or characteristic of a leader, situational leadership shifts the gaze to two other factors: (i) the needs of the organization at any given moment in time and (ii) the skills, competences and attributes of the workers to meet the needs of the organization at that time. with these two factors in concert, the situational leader will draw upon a range of styles that best fit the need. this of course requires the leader to, firstly, have the insight to know when to employ a particular style, and secondly, the experience to know which style will be most useful and relevant in any given context. clearly situational leadership changes from context to context. it is important for managers to know this is a strength, and also to know their intrinsic style, which is one they are most likely to revert to in times of stress. goleman (2000) drew upon his work on emotional intelligence to develop his six styles of situational leadership: i. coaching leadership works with individuals developmentally. this style is valuable if staff know their limitations and are ready to be developed ii. pacesetting leadership sets aggressive goals and high expectations. they lead by example prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 11 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) but followers need to be competent and motivated or burnout occurs; iii. democratic leadership invites followers to contribute and take responsibility; this is time consuming when deadlines loom; iv. affiliative leadership uses praise with employees; they put them first to build confidence. this could cause poor team performance; v. authoritative leadership is useful where there is an issue with organizational direction; this style facilitates the analysis of problems but can be challenging for experienced staff who may resent being directed; vi. coercive leadership has clear goals and staff are directed. this style is valuable in times of crisis. c. instructional leadership emerging in the 1980s, instructional leadership was characterised by hallinger & murphy (1985) as a framework that defined the mission of the school (framing goals and communicating goals); managing the ‘instructional programme’ (coordinating the curriculum, supervising and evaluating and monitoring student progress) and developing the ‘school learning climate programme’ (protecting instructional time, incentivising teachers, incentivising learning, promoting professional development and being highly visible). instructional leaders have a focus on supervision, curriculum development and staff development (blase & blase, 1999), setting the school’s direction and vision, negotiating shared goals, planning, clarifying roles and objectives, motivating and setting high performance expectations (leithwood et al, 2004). d. transformational leadership transformational leadership is characterised by four key attributes including idealised influence (the leader is an admired role model; inspirational motivation (the leader empowers their followers); intellectual stimulation (the leader approaches problems in new ways); individualised consideration (the leader takes interest in followers’ career goals) (bass, 1998). the successful enactment of all four factors leads to performance beyond expectation: i. idealized influence relates to the way the leader is a role model to others; how they have a purpose that drives them and influences others, referred to as ‘charisma’. the leader appears competent by ensuring goals are attainable; they set high expectations; ii. inspirational motivation – the leader inspires others to follow them. they see and know how to attain future success through long-term time frames, winning hearts and minds; iii. individualised consideration demonstrates a genuine concern for the needs of followers; the leader is people-driven and develops others through counselling. followers develop a concern for achievement and meeting organizational goals. iv. intellectual stimulation describes the leader’s innovating characterthey challenge their followers to be creative and innovative. leithwood et al (1998) propose that the transformational leader models practice, has high expectations, builds culture, has a vision and shared goals and provides individualised support for colleagues. the transformational leader seeks to lift levels of morality in both parties, has a vision for the school (green, 2010) and can articulate this with clarity to stakeholders. skilful at recruiting talented employees they see individual skills or talents and are able to direct these for the benefit of the organization. transformational leadership requires the leader to have a vision underpinned by values and the initiative to embed these into the culture of the organization; followers are empowered through the development of an esprit de corps. this value system nurtures the learning environment where common goals are shared. in this environment needs are reciprocal between leader and follower; transformational leaders place the needs of followers centrally. prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 12 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) e. distributed leadership spillane’s distributed leadership model (2006) has a focus on leadership practice and interactions between key players (leaders, followers) and their situated context. spillane proposes that effective leadership practice occurs in the interactions between the leaders and followers within their given context, where interaction is central. this is not a ‘shared leadership’ model, and nor does it focus on the actions of key individuals but on collective interaction. caldwell too suggests that a distributed leadership model is successful because of its capacity to “join networks or federations to share knowledge, address problems and pool resources” (caldwell, 2006, p. 75). the distributed leadership model brings the needs of students to the fore – as harris et al note, school leadership has a greater influence on both schools and students when it is widely distributed (harris et al, 2007). drawing on research evidence, and adopting an interpretive stance on distributed leadership, harris notes that there are numerous leaders within any given school and between schools, where the architecture comprises hierarchies and set roles to focus on interactions, on learning, on innovation and agency to innovate. empowering leaders throughout the organisation of the school to assume leadership practices necessitates a culture and environment of trust, with a focus on pupil development. these five examples of leadership theory are not intended to be exhaustive. rather, they have been identified as offering a range of theoretical perspectives on leadership practices such that they provide us with a theorised language with which to engage with our data. 3. methodology participants in this study were senior leaders in fortyone primary and nineteen secondary schools in kent, medway and london and were aged between forty and sixty-five. thirty-nine of the participants were women, and twenty-one were male; most were white majority british and three participants were of south asian heritage. the schools were a mixture of academies (9), community schools (19), church schools (11) and schools in multi academy trusts (21). it is worth noting that schools in kent and medway are part of a selective system and that five of the secondary schools were grammar schools. the original mechanisms for recruiting participants were through professional links and relationships and then through snowballing. senior leaders who took part in the initial interviews recommended other potential interviewees whom they thought might be willing to take part in the research and in some instances made the initial introductions. the personal and professional recommendations and introductions of our first participants were particularly important at a time when many school leaders were uncomfortable and wary of talking about an initiative that originated from the home office. forty-eight head teachers and twelve assistant head teachers and/or deputy head teachers ultimately agreed to take part in the research. they were all experienced teachers and all had been in post for between five and twenty-three years. all the interviews took place in the participants’ place of work, usually in their office although in three cases interviews took place in an empty staffroom at the end of the school day. the interviews were structured around two distinct (although related) areas of inquiry that were approached using different prompts. at the time of the interviews the concept of fundamental british values was still relatively unexplored, and we suspected that because of this, senior leaders might not have had the opportunity to reflect in depth on the implications for their practice and their relationships will colleagues. we also rejected a paradigm that posited us as omniscient specialists whose aim it was to extract information and data from our participants. rather, we recognised that the interviews must be sites of co-creation in understanding the implications and significance of fundamental british values as part of a leadership landscape. we therefore identified and privileged the notion of dialogue as a component of our methodology. dialogue reframes not only the participant but also the researcher; it ruptures the static polarisation between inquirer and subject and permits a more fluid and prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 13 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) natural interaction than might otherwise be expected in a traditional interview (anderson, 2014). enacting dialogue through the interviews enabled us to recognise the views and opinions of the participants on the relationship between leadership and fundamental british values; we recognised that participants’ views might be unformed and embryonic and that as such, the interviews would be a process through which those ideas became formed and articulated for the first time. the secondary mechanism in the interviews was the use of counterfactual prompting. this is the process by which artificial scenarios or case studies are presented to participants, who then respond. the use of counter factual strategies in interviews can intensify participants’ responses to questions through providing a definite focus for their deliberations (sanna, 2000). this is not only a process of making the abstract concrete but of supporting interviewees as they understand the possible relationships between their actions and possible outcomes when the situations have not yet occurred (wenzlhuemer, 2009). we suspected that because research on fundamental british values in relation to leadership was at the time still relatively uncharted, the majority of our participants would not have had opportunity to reflect from a personal leadership perspective on experiences. in this context, counterfactual prompts provide the interviewer and the interviewee with a hypothetical focus and this creates opportunities for the participant to reflect on future possible actions. the prompts nudge the interviewees to consider their possible behaviour, and also create the potential for ‘flickers of transformation’ bought about by refection (way et al, 2015). the prompts employed in this research incorporated imaginary scenarios that could occur in an ‘average’ school; they also presented a range of contexts where fundamental british values might explicitly or implicitly be an issue. the prompts were: would you consider the following acts as examples of a teacher undermining fundamental british values? • a teacher who said they did not support the monarchy as part of a discussion in a citizenship lesson; • a teacher who, during a classroom discussion, said that in some circumstances they thought political violence was justified; • a teacher who said that they could understand why in some circumstances young muslims would be attracted to extremism. and then: would you consider it unprofessional if a teacher? • attended a local rally to protest against cuts in the nhs; • attended an anti-war march where pupils and parents could be present; • stood in local elections as a councillor. interviews were audiotaped and transcribed and anonymity was protected through the use of pseudonyms and changing gender where appropriate. in terms of analysis the corpus of data was mined and coded three times to identify the a priori themes of british values and leadership. the first coding was used to identify specific references to leadership. further themes were identified during subsequent analysis of the data. the dialogic approach to interviews added new foci to the coding process. as well as coding language and meaning, we also coded interactions between participant and researcher. the nature of the interactions in interviews can reveal instances and patterns in the fluidity and coherence of talk as well as in the ways that participants engaged or disengaged from questions (ongena & dijkstra, 2006). 4. data the findings suggest that the overriding approach by senior leaders to enacting fundamental british values was one of engagement and compliance. however, within the broad category of compliance there were responses, levels of commitment and differences in interpretation that could be aligned with different leadership styles. the use of counterfactual prompts revealed tensions and apparent contradictions in leadership traits. when senior leaders were discussing the ways in which they implemented fundamental british values they were more likely to exhibit traits that prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 14 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) could be aligned to models of transformational and distributed leadership. however, when they were responding to the scenarios presented through the counterfactual prompting, they were more likely to exhibit traits typically associated with transactional styles of leadership. all senior leaders were aware of the requirements to implement fundamental british values, they understood that it was a statutory requirement and that it was embedded in the teachers’ standards and therefore had implications for teacher professionalism. there were no differences in response to age, ethnicity or gender although it was notable that participants from the five grammar schools were more likely to suggest flexibility in relation to the interpretation of fundamental british values. the number of participants from grammar schools was too small for us draw any certain conclusions but it may be that responses by leaders in these schools were contextualised by the belief they were working in more liberal environments (beighton & revell, 2020). as well as a universal recognition of the importance of fundamental british values, three themes appeared in the data in relation to leadership. these were leaders as custodians, leaders as buffers between teachers and policy and leaders as policy actors. a. leaders as custodians all participants interpreted the requirement to implement fundamental british values as in some way impacting on their responsibility to create and develop values within their school. in this, participating school leaders engaged in discussion about the moral purpose of their practice, and this was a clear demonstration of the way in which transactional leadership has evolved. in line with other studies involving teachers and student teachers, there were concerns about the term ‘british’ in relation to values and in even in the legitimacy of a project to create a sense of national values (maylor, 2010; jerome, 2012). however, school leaders were proud of the values and ethos that informed their schools and were suspicious of policy that sought to remake those values or ethos in some way. leaders repeatedly noted that the creation and implementation of values in a school was ultimately their responsibility and that they would not sanction values that they thought were not appropriate for their school. it is noteworthy here that the culture of the school, including a discussion of values, is highly significant to the school leaders; the underpinning mission of their schools was discussed in relation to values and again, this demonstrates a move away from an understanding of leadership as transactional. when asked if the requirement to promote fundamental british values would affect their approach to the existing values of the school all but two respondents said no. two reasons were repeatedly given for this. the first was that the existing values of the school already echoed fundamental british values. senior leaders argued that fundamental british values added nothing new to the existing values or ethos of their school. echoing situational leadership indicators, the senior leaders were highly focused on their school, on what was appropriate to their setting. some pointed out that the values as articulated via fundamental british values were vague and open to interpretation and in this the contemporary senior school leader is epitomised – in their daily roles they had a clear focus on negotiating their mission including goals and values, on setting high expectations and overseeing progress in these endeavours; the fact that they felt fundamental british values were ill-defined is an example of the way senior leaders seek clarity in order to demonstrate progress. this is a marker of an educational system in which smart targets are set such that they can be measured and achieved. over half of the participants also made the point that the values were essentially universal and would therefore have been incorporated into their ethos or mission statements as a matter of course. the second reason senior leaders gave for stating that fundamental british values would not change the values of their school was that it was inconceivable that the home office could intervene so authoritatively in such a significant area. many of the senior leaders were visibly affronted at the idea that an external agent could impose values on the school that had not been agreed by the community of the school and again this represents the contemporary senior school leader; prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 15 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) drawing on indicators of transformational leadership the leaders saw as their responsibility the building of school culture, of goals and a vision for their community and the imposition of these from government sat uncomfortably with models of school leadership in which they were immersed. one assistant head at a church of england primary school described how the development of values for the school was a whole school venture that ensured that everyone in the school was committed to the same vision: we do things very differently at a school like this, i mean the values we have are everywhere, really, they’re in everything we do and we went through a long process, it was very thorough and, and democratic as well, it took …. well, it took nearly the best part of a year. we worked very closely with the diocese and it really helped to bring us all together, they (the school values) had to be agreed by everyone. this is a clear articulation of distributed leadership, where the interactions between the leader, the staff and the wider school community acted in concert to develop a set of collective values; the staff had agency to influence this development and the result is a situated representation of the community. b. leaders as stewards we asked participants if they could envision a scenario where a colleague undermines british values and if this happened how and if they would approach it as an issue that warranted conversation with line managers. most participants were certain that as senior leaders they knew enough about their colleagues to anticipate that it would be unlikely that such a scenario would happen. they spoke with pride and confidence in relation to the abilities and professionalism of the teachers in their schools. the participants drew on indicators of situated leadership in demonstrating that they were au fait with the skills and competencies of their staff; as senior leaders they were insightful and knowledgeable about the characteristics and qualities of their staff such that they were confident that their staff were able to enact and embody the values that underpinned their school community. a quarter of participants mentioned teacher agency in some way when they were asked if they were concerned that teachers in their schools might need support to interpret the guidelines. they referred to the importance of ‘independence’, ‘professionalism, of teachers being ‘old hands at that sort of thing’ and the fact that good teachers’ know how to act in the moment because ‘that’s what this job requires’. rather than drawing on authoritative or coercive models of transactional leadership, the participants demonstrated transformational leadership skills in that they sought to empower their staff in their practice. five participants volunteered that they thought head teachers should have greater confidence in colleagues to be able to negotiate policy, because as one head teacher said ‘god knows, we’ve all had enough practice’. twelve senior leaders (20%) used the word ‘trust’ in response to the question about how confident they were that teachers could interpret the guidelines on fundamental british values appropriately: i don’t think it would ever come to something like that here, i mean i can’t think of anyone, and i mean, this is a big school. teachers need to know that i trust them, and i do, i say it all the time, they need to know because, well, i think, they (the government) make it pretty clear that they don’t trust us. nearly 75% (43) of respondents discussed the act of reinterpretation of policy as part of the way they acted as a buffer between teachers and policy. when they were asked how they would react if a teacher undermined fundamental british values many responded by talking about the ambiguity of the guidelines and of fundamental british values themselves. when we suggested as part of the dialogue that ‘the rule of law’ was not ambiguous at all, participants were more likely to insist that the policy could be interpreted by them as senior leaders, and that the act of deciding exactly how policy was worked out in school environments was a part of their role. senior leaders therefore presented themselves as a buffer prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 16 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) between teacher and policy by positioning themselves as an interpreter of policy. c. leaders as policy actors: responses to counterfactual scenarios the responses to the counterfactual prompts were different in tone compared to the open questions discussed above. a majority of school leaders in the primary phases (75%) and a quarter of leaders from the secondary sector answered that all six scenarios could constitute undermining fundamental british values or unprofessional behaviour on the part of teachers. some interviews suggested that when participants answered questions that were more specific, and which required senior leaders to respond to concrete situations, leaders were less flexible and accommodating in their answers. so that before, where many had been keen to emphasise teacher agency, autonomy, ambiguity and nuance, now participants were more likely to emphasise the responsibility of teachers to the school and in this there was a sense of the mono-narrative of leadership expressed in transactional leadership. in response to the question of whether teachers could be trusted not to undermine fundamental british values when they were teaching most participants had said that they trusted teachers and that teachers did not need support. but when asked whether ‘a teacher who said they did not support the monarchy as part of a citizenship lesson’ and whether a ‘teacher who said that in some circumstances they thought political violence was justified during a class discussion’ most primary participants thought that both activities constituted undermining fundamental british values. secondary leaders were less likely to say this although 25% agreed that it did. one primary head teacher voiced his concerns that a teacher would say that they did not support the monarchy in class: i think i would say to a teacher, why are you saying this? i’m not saying, i’m really not, that, they are not entitled to their own views, they absolutely are, but with young people they have to think very carefully how they can be interpreted. it’s a very fine line and we do have to have to be careful. you can discuss different views, but ... even then? i think parents might ask, what are you doing and then, that might not be so easy to explain. the counterfactual prompts that asked participants to consider whether certain activities of teachers would be considered unprofessional reflected a similar pattern in the differences between senior leaders and primary and secondary settings. in answer to the prompt, ‘would you consider attending an nhs local rally to protest against funding cuts as unprofessional?’ 43% of primary senior leaders said yes in contrast with 7% of secondary leaders. in answer to the prompt, ‘would you consider attending an anti-war march where pupils and parents could be present as unprofessional?’ 30% of primary senior leaders said yes and 17% of secondary leaders said yes. the discussions that followed indicated that senior leaders tended to consider the reputation of the school and their relationships with parents and governors in relation to teacher behaviour. the issue of legality was mentioned by 15 senior leaders (25%) and three participants questioned the interviewers as to whether the activities suggested by prompts were illegal. two participants asked the interviewer what other senior leaders had said in the interviews and nearly a third (18) mentioned that ofsted may look on the activities of teachers unfavourably. 5. discussion education leadership involves the interplay between enacting the hegemonic discourse of education policy whilst simultaneously leading a professional community that may have conflicting agendas or foci. the discourses of transformational and distributive leadership bring to the fore notions of agency, empowerment, networks and action and yet tensions can be found between these aspects of the leader’s role and policy positions. this tension was clearly illustrated by the complex response of school leaders to the issue of political protest. participants indicated in the abstract that they did support political freedoms and that they would support the democratic right to prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 17 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) protest. when asked to respond to the question of political rights in response to concrete situations, participants were concerned about contextual factors and the consequences for their schools. this ambiguity on the part of participants suggests that in part, their commitment to implementing fundamental british values was performative. that is, their compliance was in part for consumption by parents, governors or ofsted. other research has suggested that schools’ engagement with fundamental british values is performative in that the display of compliance is only a ‘show’ (robson, 2019). our research suggests that this performativity may be underpinned by an uneven commitment to political freedoms. the complex understanding of political freedom held by school leaders is further illustrated by their ambiguous approach to issues of agency. the question of teacher agency is often discussed in relation to engaging with prevent and some research argues that teacher agency is underestimated (jerome et al, 2019). busher et al’s research, examining the way teachers interpret and enact prevent, suggested that teachers are not entirely without agency (busher et al, 2020). our research suggests that agency is understood and experienced by school leaders in ways that are malleable. many school leaders appeared to exhibit signs that their views were aligned with a distributive model of leadership, particularly in the way they acknowledged and valued their own agency and the agency of their teachers. we align this to leaders as custodians. however, the same leaders exhibited more nuanced views on agency revealing themselves to also be policy actors. their later contradictory views on agency in relation to the counter factual prompts suggests that agency is not experienced as an absolute state but rather, is fluid – a changing disposition, as it were. education is regarded as the cornerstone of liberal democracy, and school leaders have traditionally been regarded as having a civic duty, at the forefront in the project of education as a moral enterprise. the civic nationalist turn has seen an emphasis on the nationalist, with expression in, for example, the notion of fundamental british values, and a policy assumption that assumes non-consensus around values. our research suggests that the fluidity of school leaders’ responses to questions about professionalism and agency were in part informed by their perceptions – they were aware that this policy requirement was statutory and this influenced their responses. this research problematises the way that school leaders may engage with policy requirements such as fbvs and the prevent duty where even the custodians’ responses were framed by the policy context. 6. conclusion the civic nationalist turn in education – which is arguably given expression in the requirement to promote (fundamental) british values – reveals the fault-line in a policy terrain that codifies the moral purpose of education and its underpinning values. this, we suggest, is because the process of codifying by government disregards the autonomy of the education leader (expressed in situated, transformational and distributive leadership styles) to determine the values of their respective school communities. and herein lies the rub: by codifying a set of values and infusing their enactment with a statutory requirement, they become hegemonic. as such, school leaders must, by definition, ensure they are enacted. and this situates the school leader in a transactional leadership space; the intersection of education policy influenced by the home office and the values underpinning contemporary forms of educational leadership is revealed as one of tension. at the time of writing, we expected that school leaders would demonstrate some agency and there would be some resistance to fbvs, and while ongoing research has demonstrated teachers have some agency in the classroom, the nuanced and contradictory responses to fbvs at an early stage were an indication of how quickly fbvs would be rationalised and normalised in schools. we had anticipated that school leaders would resist the imposition of fbvs as an affront to their authority and the rights of their colleagues, but this was not necessarily the case. research by farrell & lander (2019) and elton-chalcraft et al (2017) demonstrates that fbvs, like other aspects of the prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 18 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) prevent agenda, are now enacted and legitimised as part of the school safeguarding practices, evidenced by the fact that so many schools advertise their commitment to fbvs alongside their safeguarding policies on their public facing webpages. 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 9. references anderson, h. 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(2017). to promote, or not to promote, fundamental britsh values? teachers’ standards, diversity and teacher education. british educational research journal, 43(1), 29-48. farrell, f. (2016). why all of a sudden do we need to teach fundamental british values? a critical investigation of religious education student teacher https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1077800420948102 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 19 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) positioning within a policy discourse of discipline and control. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 280-297. farrell, f. & lander, a. 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(2016). i’d worry about how to teach it: british values in english classrooms. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 314-328 ongena, y. & dijkstra, w. (2006). methods of behavior of survey interviews. journal of official statistics, 9(3), 419-451. ramsay, p. (2017). is prevent a safe space? education, citizenship and social justice, 12(2), 143-158. robson, j. (2018). how do practitioners in early years provision promote fundamental british values? international journal of early years education, 27(1), 95-110. russell, g. & kelly, n. (2002). research as interacting dialogic processes: implications for reflexivity. forum: qualitative social research, 3(3). forum: qualitative social research. https://www.qualitativeresearch.net/index.php/fqs/index sanna, j & j. turley-ames (2000). counterfactual intensity. european journal of social psychology, 30((2), 273-296. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/index https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/index https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(200003/04)30:2%3c273::aid-ejsp993%3e3.0.co;2-y prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) bryan & revell (2021) prism 20 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 0992(200003/04)30:2<273::aid-ejsp993>3.0.co;2y smith, p. & bell, l. (2011). transactional and transformational leadership in schools in challenging circumstances: a policy paradox. management in education, 25(2), 58-61. spillane, j.p. (2006). distributed leadership. josseybass. way, k. zwier, r. & tracey, s. (2015). dialogic interviewing and flickers of transformation: an examination and delineation of interactional strategies that promote participant self-reflexivity. qualitative inquiry, 21(8), 720-731. wenzlhuemer, r. (2009). counterfactual thinking as a scientific method. historical social thinker, 34(2), 27-54. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(200003/04)30:2%3c273::aid-ejsp993%3e3.0.co;2-y https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(200003/04)30:2%3c273::aid-ejsp993%3e3.0.co;2-y prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 109 class, opportunity and the lesser minds problem: a ragged university response copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 109-127 alex dunedin ragged university alex@raggeduniversity.com 1. a starting position in this paper psychological research is used to develop a framework in which we can place notions of class in terms of relative dehumanisation as ingroups and outgroups to understand how opportunities are afforded to some and not to others, with categorical identities set up on the basis of inclusion or exclusion from cultural production. it draws upon political economy as a social science to examine how resulting culture reinforces relative advantage and disadvantage through finance as a mechanism which dispossesses the most disadvantaged from their inherent human capital as wealth appropriated by the advantaged. it introduces education as necessarily a project of social justice, with the ragged university as a model in education consistent with human development and designed to function for the least advantaged under the hostile sociology of artificial scarcity. the way we perceive other people affects how we behave towards them and the opportunities we afford to them. the lesser minds problem (the propensity to perceive and value other minds less vividly than one’s own) and the process of dementalisation are active participants in our behaviour as an animal species. i see these processes of dehumanisation as informing the basis of class behaviours and from this position, suggest that group dynamics of the formation of ingroups and outgroups can be meaningfully understood. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 110 the organisational structures which shape our opportunities and interactions in a postindustrial urbanised world are largely dictated by the resources and the capital available. i argue that this forms the basis of class and the categorical formulations used to make distinctions between ingroups and outgroups. in a time when the physical world is no longer available as a commons, capital accumulation has turned to the realm of the intellectual and its associated commons; portions of human capital which traditionally have been regarded as inherently owned by the individual and valued as public goods. education is increasingly characterised as a product sold as a 'luxury brand' offering financial inclusion for those who can afford to engage in it. this contrasts with the notion of education and pedagogy associated with a nurturing and drawing out of the abilities inherent in, and belonging to, the individual as a part of their existential wealth. class, as a psychology of group behaviours, plays out in education as a type of dispossessive economy, where a gate kept system of symbolic accreditation is increasingly available only to those who can pay to participate. as a counterpoint to this dispossessive economy, as someone who needed the succour of an intellectual life and to be in relation with a community of peers, i describe the rationale behind how the ragged university was created; a project to create a practical philosophy of education in terms of human development which is resistant to appropriation by finance and co-opting by those already privileged. 2. tendencies underlying our psychology which inform class i am particularly interested in relating 'the lesser minds problem' in the field of dehumanisation psychology (waytz, schroeder, epley, 2014) to the problem of class; conceptualisation articulating how psychological processes involved in dehumanisation are active in our everyday actions and behaviours. previously it was thought dehumanisation required the active othering of a group or individual such that they become diminished in the eyes of, and in comparison to, those considered a part of the ingroup. the understanding that such socially diminishing processes are not rarefied instances of extreme circumstances (such as the dehumanisation of the cultural groups in situations of war) but exist en masse to varying degrees in the average person's day to day encounters with others is important. acknowledging this hidden sociology suggests a means of understanding prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 111 how class identities are formed, how poverties can be visited on the disadvantaged from those in positions of relative privilege, and how the culture of privilege over others continues to spring from the minutia of our encounters. in our experience of being, our own thoughts are by incident more prominent and evident than the thoughts of others, our actions have more obvious impact where the impact of others is apprehended secondarily, and our propensity to value our own parsing of the world over others by dint of active belief: present obstacles to understanding others as equally human and valuable. we see other minds in the first instance as lesser minds due to the relative immediacy and fidelity of the ontological experience. in knowing that this takes place we can not only develop the counter balance to this inherent bias in our psychology, but also gain helpful bearings to analyse larger social phenomena which embody network effects. to understand “class behaviours”, first we must acknowledge and understand some of the basic psychology which underpins group behaviours that make major contributions to the formation of social groups. as haslam (2006) remarks, ‘the denial of full humanness to others, and the cruelty and suffering that accompany it, is an all-too familiar phenomenon’ (p. 252). the effects of dehumanisation have been examined and documented in various domains including ethnicity, gender, professionalisation, disability, technology, sport, as well as other areas. specifically, in this paper i am exploring dehumanisation tendencies as encountered in relation to perceptions of class (loughnan, haslam, sutton and spencer, 2014). kofta, baran and tarnowska (2014) articulate dehumanisation as a denial of human potentials illustrating that there is an extensive literature which demonstrates that individuals who are perceived not to belong in a group (outgroup members) are subject to the tendency of dehumanisation behaviours. perceived identity plays a pivotal role in the treatment and opportunities which members belonging to one group extend to those who are thought to belong to another. how our identities are constructed by the perception of others involves the reading of various signs and signifiers which relate to our life circumstances. what is troubling in all this is that dehumanisation is commonplace and regular, influencing behaviour consistently at all levels of society. far from just being the psychology of group dynamics which requires the active demonisation of another, evidence shows that a phenomenon known as infrahumanisation prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 112 occurs (marcu and chyrssochoou, 2005); where there is the inclination to ascribe human secondary emotions more to ingroups than to outgroups. secondary emotions are emotional reactions we have to other emotions (i.e. what affection is to love, and cheerfulness is to joy). according to kofta and colleagues it is measurable that when an individual expresses secondary emotion, it has a different impact on an observer's responses when shown by an ingroup or an outgroup member (kofta, baran and tarnowska, 2014). in addition, when an ingroup member expresses secondary emotions, this increases the recipients' implicit conformity to the actor's suggestions, makes their linguistic behaviour more prosocial, and stimulates an automatic motor approach response (a person with an 'approach response' displays behaviour that brings them closer to a reward). when an outgroup member does the same thing, opposite effects emerge. crucial to understanding class as an ingroup is the grasping of these aspects of social psychology. in considering how various groups might be denied their human potential it is important to differentiate between ingroup humanisation and outgroup dehumanisation (vaes, leyens, paladino and miranda, 2012). dehumanisation is reported as a pervasive phenomenon in interpersonal and intergroup contexts and occurs in a large variety of social domains with the finding from leyens and colleagues (2000) being commonly reported; humanness is reserved to describe one’s own group and that humanity is ascribed as the essence of the “we” category. 3. processes of dehumanisation and dementalisation it is through our recognition of infrahumanisation that we understand more about the assignations which occur when we examine our associative networks and the undercurrents which shape who is privileged with which opportunities; in the context of this paper, those of pedagogy and education relating to class. before we move on to scrutinize this scheme of understanding, first i examine how the processes of dehumanisation involves the dementalisation of those in the outgroup context. the acknowledgement of cognitive capacity or lack thereof is a significant part of the dehumanisation process. mentalisation is a part of the process of recognising somebody as human. the denial of mind is known as dementalisation and thus is conversely a part of the process of dehumanisation (harris and fiske, 2009; kozak, marsh and wegner, 2006; waytz, grey, epley and wegner, 2010). prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 113 in ascribing mind, we accord an individual with moral rights and give meaning to their actions. thus, mind attribution is relevant as a social attribution on multiple levels. the dementalisation of individuals diminishes them in the eyes of the law (diminished capacity), in the practice of medicine (szasz, 2005) and more widely in terms of a moral agent (jahoda, 1999). a kantian model of persons as rational and autonomous lays out much of the foundations of how culturally we have come to equate humanness to mind. the cultural status signifiers denoting mind often confer where in established 'hierarchies of legitimacy' (elias, 1982) they feature in respects afforded to them. at this point we must examine some of the key mechanisms which bring about the distinctions that contribute to the construction of ingroups and outgroups that display themselves as class identities, whilst simultaneously reinforcing and recreating such categorical behaviours. the process of mentalisation of an individual has been shown to be influenced by the perceiver’s feelings toward them (which may be flexible across time and situation). waytz et al and showed that an adult fully capable of mentalising other individuals may fail to do so in instances when the individual is disliked (waytz, gray, epley, and wegner, 2010). disliked individuals are dementalised, and this can manifest itself in both low-level identifications as well as reduced attributions of mind. low-level identifications tend to convey a sense of how an activity is done, whereas high-level identifications tend to convey a sense of why (e.g., the baking of bread is a low-level identification, the reason of being hungry is a high-level). in this context it can mean outgroup members are dehumanised by being perceived as robots that lack emotional sensitivity and self-reflection (kofta, baran, and tarnowska, 2014). this is coupled with the aforementioned 'lesser minds problem' (waytz, schroeder and epley, 2014). human beings have brains which are highly capable, equipped with the ability to reason about the experience of others, think about how others are perceiving the world, the attitudes they encounter, the intentions they meet with, to develop complex pictures of reputations and call to mind the stores of knowledge distributed throughout a community. this ability comes along with a significant issue – the minds of other people routinely appear dimmer, and by experience, lesser than one's own. this, the authors suggest, is primarily due to three phenomena of being: we have direct access to our own minds versus those we prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 114 encounter, and in turn know the causal importance of our own mind versus others'; we perceive our experience as immediately objective versus others' as subjective. collectively the psychological phenomena described above are active factors in group dynamics which play out in the formation of ingroups and outgroups; hierarchies of legitimacy bound up as much in politics as in rational, meritocratic schemes of order which structure our lives. to approach an understanding of class and behaviour in the institutional structures of education and pedagogy we must gain an appreciation of resources, their allocation and how scarcity affects the interrelationship amongst them. 4. the historical and economic setting of our institutions and social habitat our society is heavily stratified by the effect finance has on cultural life; what money you have overwhelmingly dictates what opportunities you can take part in. this is the case with formal education and the signifiers of formal education which an individual gains that go on to determine what opportunities are open to them. this paper forwards the idea that the structure of the social landscape is given definition by access to economic resources out of which categorical identities emerge, in particular those which are commonly referred to in terms of class. this speaks both to my experience and also to the methods of logic which are helpful in deconstructing that experience. it is necessary to unpick the pressures and constraints which are acting on our psychology before we can attempt an understanding of pedagogy and education in context. for millennia humans have conjured hierarchies and orders to categorise things, from the early anthropocentric formulations positioning the human being as the most significant entity of the universe to modern day mythologies of meritocracy and social class essentialism. the kind of deterministic privileging embedded in such world views is subtle and insidious as it is easily adopted and recreated (even by those disadvantaged by it) however, less easily deconstructed and adjusted for. virginia eubanks describes such ideas as 'magical thinking' (eubanks, 2012, p. xv) which obfuscate with their implicit panglossian world views of how the most deserving get what they are due. the use of the notion of meritocracy carries with it simplistic assumptions such as the world operates under conditions of perfect competition and perfect information in an environment which lacks structural barriers and/or structural violence. the term panglossian derives from voltaire's satirical criticism of gottfried liebniz's prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 115 formulation that we live in the 'most perfect of all possible worlds' (leibniz, 2005, p. 37). in voltaire’s 'candide: or, all for the best' (1759) the young protagonist having grown up in privilege is taught by professor pangloss to understand the world in terms of the leibnizian optimism pervasive at the time (i.e. 1759). candide then encounters the end of his good fortune embarking on a journey which is a progressive and traumatic disillusionment as he encounters destitution in the world. another continuation of such wholesale myths takes place in samuel smiles' famous 1859 book 'self help' which began a whole genre of writing. central in this work is the position espousing that those who persevere with good conduct will be valued and rewarded in society. robert tressell, in his social commentary, 'the ragged trousered philanthropists' suggested 'it was suitable for perusal by persons suffering from almost complete obliteration of the mental faculties' (1914, p. 289). kraus and keltner (2013) analyse the evidence of how perceptions of social class can influence a range of social cognitive predispositions, from forms of causal attribution to moral conclusions. they study the effects of social class essentialism in the playing out of attitudes and behaviours and identify how diminished resources and lower social class ranking constrain social outcomes promoting contextualist understandings of the world in those affected, such as social constructivism. conversely it was found that an abundance of resources and higher social class ranking generate situations which enhance personal freedoms and promote social cognitive tendencies that are solipsistic and individualistic tending to affirm and reinforce their own position in contexts (kraus, piff, mendoza-denton, rheinschmidt and keltner, 2012). here i have briefly touched upon the ideas of social class essentialism and associated concepts such as meritocracy to illustrate how dehumanisation through the lesser minds problem and dementalisation are historically and socially reproduced in cultural terms. from the view of the united kingdom in 2018, the resources available to individuals at this particular point of history are fashioned from the flow of events culminating to the present. to arrive at a place where it is possible to articulate an informed position on pedagogy, education and class, some elementary interpretive sketching of the historical and economic landscape is necessary. in the middle ages (approximately 5th to 15th centuries ce) there was the emergence of the first universities formed of feudal guilds of students learning under those considered learned masters (rashdall, 2013). what is commonly referred to as prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 116 the renaissance period (approximately 14th to 17th centuries ce) in european history followed bringing into view an intellectual humanism, a rebirth of culture that broadened and diverged from the medieval scholasticism of the middle ages. after this in the 18th century ce, the 'age of enlightenment' is described where cultures and figures with diverse interests and perspectives placed reason as the authority and source of legitimacy. after this age the industrial revolution (mid 18th to mid-19th century ce) influenced by figures such as richard cantillon and adam smith organising political economy from the scattered writings of the mercantilists. parallel to this in the 17th century were the enclosures of commons where traditionally people drew what they needed from the land to live. in england figures such as gerrard winstanley were involved in protesting the revoking of the tacit rights to farm and forage in certain tracts of land in movements known as the diggers and true levellers. later, in scotland first the lowland clearances (1760-1830 ce) saw people slowly and consistently displaced from their common subsistence arrangements on land making way for early super farms of sheep and cattle; this preceded the more well-known highland clearances (mid 18th to 19th centuries ce) which took place in a more sudden and violent fashion. the effect this had on the population was that urban centres became populated by those uprooted from their traditional plots and connection with the land thus filling the mills and factories with labour forces which had arisen with the advent of various technological advances in materials and energy such as steam power. the point illustrated here is the dispossession of people from their means of living on the land as the physical commons. a class of dispossessed people emerged who were then malleable due their subsistence needs and thus served as workforces for merchants up and down the country, often in the most dire and exploitative conditions. those who had the resources of finance and capital could buy the land and continue the feudal legacy under the guise of mercantilism. those who had finance had one set of opportunities, those who did not had a different set often articulated as those who own the property and those who paid rent to them by serving a function. following the industrial revolution came the period loosely referred to as modern history taking us from the 19th century ce through to what gets described as the postmodern period (mid-20th century onwards). prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 117 in his landmark work 'the civilizing process', elias (1982) articulates a perspective on the above history which focuses on changes in how labour was divided over a long period as structural changes to the habitat of human populations affect their movements. the analysis follows the consolidation of political authority and the capture of physical power through growing monopolies. such a concentration of resources, agency and wealth throughout the ages is documented by piketty (2014) in his work 'capital in the twenty-first century' which brings together data covering three centuries and from more than twenty countries representing one of the largest economic studies done to date. the thesis is that inequality is a feature of the system of capital accumulation which structures our world. in our current position in history, the term of a 'post-industrial urbanized world' describes the reality that nearly every aspect of our lives is locked up with the workings of the urban landscape. i concur with rockström and colleagues (2009), that the physical world and its commons have found their bounded nature, both in the possessed ownership of the rentier classes but also in terms of the planetary boundaries of the resources and ecosystem upon which we depend as a species. to live now must necessarily be through co-existence in a society of individuals, states, organisations and institutions. in this scheme of affairs, we need to engender a cognitive society; one in which every individual is a participant in knowledge production and meaning making, as well as co-producing a civilization which is sustainable with the means available to us and co-owning the problems our species has collectively brought about. this paper puts forward the economic thesis that through the concentration of wealth in the form of finance, investments – particularly via the abstract vehicle of the stockmarket system – have exhausted the 'high growth' in traditional markets of physical goods and services. in the abstract world of finance there is the drive to ever seek out new markets and mediums to invest in and thereby to extract profit from. glattfelder (2010) documents the emergence of an “economic super entity” largely in the agglomeration of investment banks. another paper sets out an analysis of how patterns of investment have moved in on the institution of education as an investment medium through the production of scarcity (dunedin, 2017). it is this production of scarcity which has the effect of displacing people from the knowledge and skills which are an innate part of their being via a process i call “unvaluing”. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 118 traditionally the formulation of the concept of human capital in political economy values the stock of skills and knowledge that the individual possesses as their own (goldin, 2016). education, training and health are commonly subject headings under the study of human capital. importantly, in the context of human capital, schultz (1961) stated that free people were not to be equated with property and marketable assets as it carried the implication of slavery. despite this recognition by some economists of the moral hazard in regarding the knowledge and skills inherent in the individual – the human capital of which the individual is sovereign as a market opportunity, the financial world has moved in to enclose the lifeworlds of people through various means. education along with other public goods are being repositioned in the cultural context in terms of consumption, consumers, brands, and products (molesworth, nixon and scullion, 2011) – all of which illustrate the superimposition of market values on intellectual commons that represent essential elements of the human psychological and social habitats. i have attempted above to layout the mechanisms by which inequality of access/distribution of resources gives rise to the conditions for classes to emerge on the basis of accumulation of wealth thereby coalescing the conditions on which processes of dehumanisation can thrive and offering an account for the repeated reproduction of educational – and associated social and economic – exclusion. i suggest in my interpretive narrative that there are behaviours of appropriation and accumulation which are repeated, and which have a bearing on how we can read today's macro-social picture in which we find ourselves operating. 5. education and pedagogy as a project of social justice the next section examines how we can read the relationships we encounter in pedagogy and explore education in terms of a project of social justice which stands in contrast to its reduction to a product, the student as a consumer, and society/the lives of people as a marketplace. i will be drawing a line of reasoning bringing together the psychology of dehumanisation discussed in the first section with the cultural setting of the artificial production of scarcity we find sketched in the economic picture of the second section, where resources are concentrated into a small group of privileged individuals. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 119 first, i examine the notion of pedagogy. the word derives from the latin 'pais, paid' meaning ‘boy’ conjugated with the greek 'agōgos' meaning to ‘guide’; thus, a pedagogue is someone who acts to guide a child. the roots of “educate” derive from the latin verb 'educare' meaning to 'draw out' or 'lead out'. so, the pedagogy in the activity of education manifests as someone acting as a support and guide to an individual helping to draw out the capabilities inherent in their being. this notion found in the language speaks of education in terms of a nurturing which we might immediately associate with a parent. the linguistic roots of 'parent' have the proto indo-european root 'pere' meaning "to produce, bring forth". thus, there are resonances between the root meanings at the heart of these words. the meanings ingrained in the words have continuity with a theme previously developed to give an account of what education means in terms of an institution (dunedin, 2014). this work draws upon umberto eco's analysis of key elementary cultural phenomena where he describes ‘kinship relations as the primary nucleus of institutionalised social relations’ (eco, 1997). this provides a conceptual framework to examine the relationships which constitute the social phenomena of education and pedagogy as well as other public goods. various institutions describe themselves as 'corporate parents' across the united kingdom. in scotland legislation has named central government, local authorities, police, health boards, qualifications association, universities, colleges, prison services, and legal services all as corporate parents (scottish government, 2015). similarly, this framing happens in england (cockett, 2016), northern ireland (access all areas (ni) (2017), and wales (llywodraeth cymru, welsh government, 2009). this forces us to analyse what kind of parent each corporate parent is? at first when notionalising the parent and family, the idealised myth fills our vision. in the soft glow of the notion of the family we stand in the projection of ideals and images; just as commonly happens with individuals and organisations, the best is put forward – the image 'we' would most like to be identified with is conjured; a fiction assembled from aspects designed to achieve a particular response. in the same way that homo sapiens dress and grooms themselves in social interactions, a corporacy has a whole apparatus designed to project the idealised self, whilst hiding, detracting from and disguising unattractive aspects which it does not want to draw attention prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 120 to. put in the converse, in the same way that corporate myths are conjured, so are myths of the parent and family. they are lionised and act as a medium upon which a charter for action is writ. these myths which shape our actions individually and collectively take on a certain character ‘once we have realized that myth serves principally to establish a sociological charter, or a retrospective moral pattern of behaviour’ (malinowski, p. 120-21). we must break down the myth of the family as categorically benevolent as it is not uncommon for families to be the most destructive, manipulative and devastating forces in individuals’ lives (forbes, 2007). the parent and family have become spoken about in ways that warn of a heresy – too sacred to critique. to understand how behaviour can pan out in an educational context, we can look to the lessons which have been learned from the field of natural history. behaviours emerge from certain circumstances which do not map onto the idealised notions of parents, families and educational institutions that are projected and which we are so familiar with. 'a poverty of resources is the direct antecedent of child abuse and infanticide in both animals and humans. limited supply and excess demand animate conflict' states forbes in his book, 'a natural history of families' (2007, p. 198). this provides us with understanding as to what happens to a population’s behaviour when artificial poverties are imposed on some via dispossessive economies. via the field of natural history, we can articulate our grasp of what happens when habitat and resources are withdrawn from a social creature (homo sapiens); sibling turns on sibling, parents can ignore and abandon children, and they can pit their offspring against each other. ingroups and outgroups are formed according to available resources and identities are significantly forged around them. it is with this backdrop that i suggest education is necessarily a project of social justice in the same manner that a representative and democratic state is. to recap, capital accumulation results in the creation of classes – haves and have nots, which form the basis of ingroups and outgroups. in the current uk context, we face an economy which dispossesses people of their inherent wealth of knowledge and capabilities should they not have the relevant signals to show they are a part of the ingroup culture. thus, the circumstances for dehumanisation of outgroups are set up. the poor and marginalised become misidentified and misrepresented through both the effects of ingroup infrahumanisation and outgroup prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 121 dehumanisation, and via processes of dementalisation are structured out of opportunities otherwise available and recognized as fundamental rights to all people. take the example used by waytz, schroeder and epley (2014); the lieutenant governor of south carolina, andre bauer, in 2010 whilst speaking about government assistance, argues that the poor should not be given food assistance because 'they will reproduce, especially the ones that don't think too much further than that... they don't know any better'. bauer's statement has implicit in it that the poor have a relatively diminished capacity for foresight to think carefully about the consequences of their actions; it implies that the poor have lesser minds. in the higher education context, archer, hutchings, leathwood and ross (2005) examine how working class groups which are socially excluded from higher education, are linked to initiatives to 'raise working class aspirations and attainment' – squarely placing the deficit in those absent from higher education. archer and colleagues write that the notion of social inclusion as achievable through widened participation in higher education is problematic and that, ‘social exclusion can also appear to reflect a static, homogenized position, ignoring multiple inequalities and relationships, positions and forms of participation’ (p.195). access to educational opportunity and capabilities is couched in language which is consistently problematic. the discourse of 'barriers', 'access' and 'participation' is largely superficial according to burke (2012, p. 141) framing the realities which people face in simplistic ways where they only have to 'overcome' or 'lift the barrier' to resolve the issue. she suggests that these ways of representing the issues 'without examining the deeply embedded processes of privileging certain social groups and epistemological perspectives above others that lie beneath those barriers' may be contributing to the long-standing inequalities. the gates are guarded as to who gets to say what in which realm. as i have discovered in conversations about learning in the context of ragged university (a free community education project i run); there are paramount issues with recognising knowledge outside of the formal setting of education. whilst exploring how knowledge created in the community context could be valued, i was told by a senior and well-known sociologist in administration prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 122 from a local university that “you may get some interest from some radical department of the humanities but there is no way that you will get traction in the stem subjects”. similarly, whilst discussing the same question with a group of administrators from the scottish qualifications association, i was told after a conversation about how knowledge might be valued when an individual possesses it and can demonstrate a working knowledge or contribution to a field “what is in it for us?” it strikes me there is a resonant fiction for these kinds of contexts from ursula le guin's science fiction book, 'the dispossessed', where, ‘the individual cannot bargain with the state. the state recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself’ (leguin, 1974, p. 219). 6. point counterpoint: a practical response in this paper i have laid out what i see as important factors and understandings relating to class, pedagogy and education. i set out to develop the practical philosophy of the ragged university project as a response to a disadvantaged position in culture which made it impossible for me, personally, to glean the benefits of formal education which i needed to survive and thrive in my cultural circumstances. this meant conceiving of and engendering a practice of education that ultimately gave rise to the opportunities i needed as a human being to develop my capabilities; it is through these opportunities that i can then take part in a meaningful existence in relationships with others in my society developing the skills and knowledge which i need to thrive. i took the view that i needed to embody the education system which i needed to see in the world specifically because the bureaucracy ridden superstructures permeated with financial values did not recognise me (or a large number who are financially impoverished in society). i was not acknowledged as part of the system because i ultimately did not have the finance to register in its scheme of value, thus anything which was to be successful would need to be built from different forms of wealth which were resistant to appropriation by finance. i and my peer group had/have no money and whatever was to be embodied needed to be developed in such a way such that it could not be co-opted by those who were already prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 123 privileged, as commonly occurs. it needed to be a practice of independent means – some room of one's own to think and develop learning through activity in relation with others. the kernel of the ragged university was thus formed around the interest and passion which drives people in their own discovery. this i discovered through friendship with people who were intrinsically motivated by what they were doing. simply put, i found people who loved what they do because the qualities of the activity and subject excited them (whatever it was). it is that connection which gives them endless energy which they invest in their subject because it is pleasure to them. it was also evident that many people are delighted to share insights with others in social ways. the only learning environments dynamic enough to provide a place suitable for such sharing were informal and reciprocal. as an organiser of a shared curriculum, the goal is the creation of the set of circumstances where a community of people freely meet up and engage with each other on their own terms. activities need to be independent of money as finance carries into the group behaviour an economy of exclusion, whereas an economy of knowledge has a generative and inclusive aspect to it. if i have an idea and you have an idea, and we both swap ideas then we both have two ideas; the same cannot be said for money which has a poverty all of its own. so, events only take place with people and venues which understand the spirit of the project – one which is not financial. this is not to say that it is not generative or reciprocal for those kind hosting spaces; part of the learning is seated in hospitality and as a coordinator of events, finding ways to be reciprocal is part of the educational arc. rather than symbols of promises (money) we remove the middle man and are directly in relationship with each other as embodiments of value. what i have learned through serving public good where i can is immeasurable and provides a series of exercises in the basic humility which is essential as a learner; i would argue that what we refer to as humanity also comes from the same source. being open to what i do not know and setting aside assumptions is another core part of the model of ragged university. anyone can do a talk, you just have to love what you do and want to share it with others in a social space. whoever writes down their speakers’ information and gets it back, gets scheduled in the next slot. this way my personal prejudices prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 124 and individual biases do not control the content of the curriculum; it is a way of meeting the world in what it presents to you and being open to that discovery. serendipity and eclecticism are key aspects of the approach which help avoid becoming bound by habit and assumptions. this also is a mechanism to help step out of one's own prescriptive behaviours that filter the world in self-selecting ways. being a coordinator is not about presiding over other people and gatekeeping knowledge, but instead learning through being in dialogue with other people who are unlike you. it is about exercising communication skills, learning through doing, connecting with and understanding your social-cultural-economic world set within the environment and its ecosystems. coordinating ragged university is a path of discovery which is uninvolved with curricula vitae – these never get asked for, and indeed, most of the time, only the first name of people is used to connect with thus dispensing of various layers of affectation that can make so many uncomfortable. it is about manifesting opportunities using available infrastructure and common technology. coordinating events gives me the opportunity to view the world in a different way; seeing what was around me which i could utilise rather than creating a wish list and seeking out the requisite finance to acquire what i needed. for me it has become about building and restoring the social habitat and engendering a life which is socially just because it is a more pleasant, enriching and interesting world which warms and humanises us all. it is about knowing that i am co-owner of a rich shared intellectual legacy which is most often available through dialogue with others, be that in the creation of artefacts, the holding of discussions, or the participation in discourses. ragged university is a long journey which embodies every aspect of a university through a personal covenant with learning which is shared. this vignette is designed to show how ragged university as a pedagogical practice has been crafted to break out of the psychology of ingroups and outgroups; the classes which are accorded to people because of their access to resources and opportunities, and to actively counter the prejudices which arise in psychology that set people into hierarchies of prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 125 legitimacy. it is not an alternative to formal education but an extension, an annex to it. it is an educational vision which is rooted in human development that necessarily needs to extend beyond the cultural configuration we live in today. references access all areas (ni) (2017). access all areas northern ireland: supporting corporate parents to improve young people’s journey from care to adulthood. retrieved march 30, 2018, from: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/accessallareas_report_web.pdf archer, l., hutchings, m., leathwood, c. and ross, a. 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(2014). the lesser minds problem, in p. g. bain, j. vaes, & j.-p. leyens (eds.), humanness and dehumanization (pp. 49-67). new york: psychology press. 152 environmental responsibility, active social learning, and political action copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 152-181 david hayes blackpool and the fylde college university centre david.hayes@blackpool.ac.uk abstract critical criminology will be applied to a discussion of environmental responsibility and the proposed controversial practice of 'fracking'. first, green criminology is discussed, as it seeks to re-direct the traditional focus of criminology onto patterns of crime and forms of criminality often marginalised by dominant research agendas and discourses. green criminology seeks to examine behaviours and actions that may not necessarily be deemed criminal, but can potentially or actually cause social and environmental harm. links will be made throughout between environmental issues, economic development and social and environmental justice. another key feature of green criminology is the way in which it seeks to align with environmental activism, and an account will be given here of ethnographic research into a contemporary environmental protest movement, the 'antifracking' movement. in relation to this movement and its potentiality, there will be a particular focus on what is known as active social learning and the ways in which community views can be formalised in order to facilitate a dialogical relationship with representative structures. in the context of environmental responsibility, the case for active social learning as a critical pedagogy is the need to find ways of interacting that bring about necessary changes in situations where there is much we don't know and need interactions with others to find out, with an emphasis on the co-creation of knowledge. this can be seen as vital for the development and success of social/environmental and political movements, as well as for creating and preserving the conditions for genuine participatory democracy. 1. introduction 1.1 active social learning and social justice the central argument presented here is for active social learning towards environmental and social justice, in the context of the drive and systemic imperatives of the present neo-liberal government, corporations, public institutions and other vested interests to embrace the practice of hydraulic 153 fracturing or ‘fracking’, with its potential for manufacturing environmental risks and harms. there are many different ways of conceptualising social learning, which is a key term used in this paper. here the concept is operationalised in a similar way to that of harold glasser (2007) and refers to successful learning as an exploratory, interactive, collaborative, collective and deliberative process that is located in a social context. glasser refers to both passive and active social learning: “passive social learning, by individuals and collectives, rests on the prior learning of others”, whereas active social learning requires “inputs in the form of communication or interaction – direct feedback – from other living beings” (glasser, 2007, p.49). in this sense, active social learning can potentially involve the cocreation and development of counter-hegemonic narratives that challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and values, though of course it can also generate actions and behaviour that are socially and environmentally harmful or ineffective. with this in mind, it is important to take a critical approach to active social learning and this paper is critical, as well as supportive, of the anti-fracking movement in terms of its prospects, potentiality and effectiveness. the paper seeks to theorize and rethink the political, as the plural space in which active social learning can take place, by drawing upon the political philosophy of hannah arendt (1968). the anti-fracking movement can be situated in the rich tradition of environmental protest and activism that has significantly, though not exclusively, involved women, and can be seen to be informed by eco-feminist concerns (dietz, 1985); without its members necessarily self-identifying as eco-feminists. it is argued here that arendt’s political thought offers a useful resource for critiquing the focus of eco-feminism on maternal care as the basis for a more ethical polity, while at the same time neglecting its useful contribution to environmental justice and responsibility. the paper concludes that the radical discourse of feminist ecological citizenship offers perhaps the best approach to understanding and challenging environmental and social injustice, as it combines an emphasis on the ‘political’ as the open, plural space in which the actions of citizens and multiple-stakeholders intersect, with an appreciation of the contribution of ecofeminism, thereby bringing together a ‘politics of care’ with a politics based upon mutual support and the kind of democratic, egalitarian relationships championed by arendt. 1.2 active social learning and environmental responsibility there can be seen to be a link between environmental responsibility and active social learning. the argument of active social learning is that people learn in a social context and through interacting with others. in the context of environmental responsibility, the case for social learning is the need to find ways of interacting that bring about necessary changes in situations where there is much we do not know and need interactions with others to find out – this is a highly dynamic process involving different stakeholders at different levels, and the research sought to gain, through situational analysis, a spatial-temporal snapshot of the antifracking movement as an organic political movement at a particular, transient moment and juncture. social learning can work alongside legislative, educational and market-based instruments of policy. the 'social' in interactive learning refers to the collective and collaborative process that can take place between interdependent stakeholders, given proper facilitation, institutional support and a conducive policy environment. the processes, which also act as ways of observing and evaluating social learning, would involve mutual respect between stakeholders, agreement on concerted action, the co-creation of knowledge needed to understand issues and practices (activists becoming 'experts'), and changes in behaviours, norms and procedures as a result of joint fact-finding and participatory interpretation of the situation. the social interactions, inherent in the research, can be seen as framing and reframing knowledge in an open society, and can be seen as reflecting the pedagogies of, amongst others: paulo friere (1970), who explored learning through dialogue and informal interaction'; donald schon (1995), who discussed 'the learning society'; and finally ivan illich 154 in his book “de-schooling society” (1972), which argued for the need to de-institutionalise society and democratise learning. it may at this juncture be worth providing examples of the two research traditions of firstorder and second-order change in the context of environmental responsibility. in the case of first-order change, there can be seen to be little attention given to wider issues and social learning, instead an instrumentalist approach to social and environmental development is adopted, often based upon economic rationality, corporate and business interests, and involving limited stakeholders and the top-down imposition of policies and practices. to illustrate this by example, a first order approach would seek to build a new power plant that uses fossil fuels more efficiently than an old power station in order to meet an increasing demand for electricity – here interactions can appear to be heavily constrained by their socioeconomic and political context. on the other hand, social learning theory, as a feature of a second-order approach, would seek to challenge the assumption that a new power plant should continue along the lines of the existing ones, or whether there is a need for the power plant at all – this could take place by using alternative, renewable energy sources. this secondorder thinking examines wider issues, for example taking account of the possible effects of toxic waste in regional, national and international contexts. this approach would involve a wide variety of stakeholders, with policies challenged and policy-making informed by local-level activities. it is likely to be a more dynamic process, aiming for concerted action amongst multiple-participants, and entailing inclusive practice and consultation with relevant stakeholders, including teachers/lecturers, students and the wider community. it is important to indicate that this is not an either-or situation, that it is not a question of using either a first order or a second order approach – both can be used, but arguably there is a gulf between the two. increasingly, in the fracking issue and debate, there can be seen to be a distance between, on the one hand, first order institutions operating on a technical high ground and making unilateral decisions, and on the other, the subjects of this research, operating in a ‘swampy’, socially relevant lowland (schon, 1995), research which did not take place 'on' others but rather 'with' others, in a relational context (wadsworth, 1997). it was found that the anti-fracking movement, as an initially localised and perhaps parochial social movement, offers the promise of bridging the potential chasm between firstand second order approaches, the local and the global. the movement also presents the opportunity for grounding theory, policy and practice in experiential knowledge and moving towards a more caring, democratic, open society with genuine widening of participation. the anti-fracking movement arguably offers an opportunity for more active social learning and active citizenship in the fullest sense – whether this opportunity will be fully realised remains unanswered. 1.3 green criminology and fracking a relevant feature of critical criminology and its subject matter is that it seeks to broaden the scope of analysis beyond the traditional, mainstream focus of criminology to a consideration of harm rather than crime, social justice rather than criminal justice. it endeavours to apply critical analysis to the 'discipline' of criminology, the study of crime, and the administration of criminal justice. the focus here is on a still largely emergent, evolving discipline and critical criminological discourse, namely green criminology. firstly, it is perhaps important to define what green criminology is, as it seeks to move beyond and to re-direct the traditional focus 155 of criminology onto patterns of crime and forms of criminality not seen as problematic according to dominant definitions. green criminology can be seen as a zemiological or harm perspective, examining behaviours and actions that may not necessarily be deemed criminal, but can potentially or actually cause social and environmental harm, with the belief that the social and natural world are inextricably linked (ruggiero and south, 2010). in this sense, green criminology is a form of transgressive criminology that shifts the criminological gaze beyond legal and state definitions of injurious practices and behaviours. the whole debate around hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has become a cause for public concern and a key electoral issue, with the guardian newspaper launching a campaign in 2015 to encourage corporations and public institutions to divest from fossil fuels and invest in the renewable sector in order to tackle climate change. the issue can be seen as connecting local and global concerns, with particular regional significance for the north west of england and lancashire the debate being focussed on the possible environmental, economic and social implications, should the practice be given the go-ahead. green criminology involves interdisciplinary scholarship and contains various theories and perspectives on the nature and scope of environmental crimes and harms which can be applied to the substantive topic of fracking. these theories and perspectives, many coming from critical criminological traditions, include eco-feminism, social constructionism, feminist ecological citizenship, neo-marxism and social ecology, which are all associated with addressing questions of environmental responsibility. it is argued that the fracking issue raises questions around citizenship and democracy, the right for local communities to selfdetermine, participate in the decision making process and develop active social learning. the practice and behaviour of fracking can also be seen to constitute a potential eco-crime, in that it could potentially lead to environmental harm and social and ecological degradation. there is a growing realisation that the state, private corporations and public institutions are decided upon pursuing a technology that presents a potential risk to health and water supply, and this is acting to make previously largely apolitical people aware of the effects of global capitalism. beck (1999), in his 'risk society' thesis, stated that 'smog is democratic', meaning that environmental risks and harms are not stratified, but affect people equally, regardless of class, gender, ethnicity or geography. however, it can be argued that the potential risks and harms of fracking are unevenly distributed, both socially and geographically, and that it is often ethnic minorities, the poor and women who are victimised by corporate and state activities that damage the environment. 1.4 teaching, research and political activism the ba criminology and criminology justice programme at blackpool and the fylde college, an associate college of lancaster university, includes two discrete core modules and streams which focus on green criminology and researching crimes of the powerful. the aim is to encourage students to make links between developments in criminological theory, empirical research and literature, criminal justice policy and practice, and wider society, in order to critically analyse structural/ institutional practices and processes. arguably, critical research can act to inform critical pedagogical practice and activism, and that was the express aim and purpose of the study into the anti-fracking movement. this paper contests that the natural environment should be central to education and that academic activity can work towards social and environmental justice by exposing corporate crimes and harms. following the work of tombs and whyte (2003) on the difficulties of researching what they term crimes of the 156 powerful, two tasks for the researcher/ teacher/ activist can be delineated. firstly, research can act as form of immanent critique, which challenges and exposes the contradictions in the neo-liberal common sense and its institutional representatives, by formalising and articulating counter-hegemonic narratives and voices. secondly, it is arguably essential for researchers to develop organic links, relationships and alliances with progressive, oppositional social groups and movements, such as the anti-fracking movement. teaching itself can be viewed as a mechanism for disseminating information and 'conscientization' (friere, 1970), and hopefully students would be motivated to take these issues into their own research, communities, workplaces and teaching activities. however, the possibility of pursuing critical research agendas and challenging dominant discourses is arguably increasingly restricted in the current neo-liberal climate of marketization and commodification of education and knowledge. in addition, the present uk government’s prevention of terrorism measures and citizenship initiatives, when applied to educational institutions, may work towards stifling and censoring political dissent and the expression of alternative ideologies, critical pedagogies and oppositional thought. the form of citizenship suggested by the uk conservative government appears to be more concerned with governmentality, risk, surveillance, control and exclusion, as opposed to the active social learning and citizenship explored and advocated in this paper. active social learning and active citizenship would involve meaningful democratic participation, empowerment of communities and the collective creation and preservation of a public space for dialogue and mutual respect. 2. the research 2.1 towards a political ‘reflexive’ ethnography in conducting the ethnographic research and participant observational fieldwork, an overt role was adopted. the researcher was a trusted and known outsider who gained initial entry/ access to the group via a friend/contact who had become a prominent and active member of the anti-fracking movement and gave informed consent to the conducting of the research, in the knowledge that the aim and purpose was to subsequently write a social scientific paper and to disseminate the findings. they were made aware of their entitlement to withdraw at any stage, for any reason, and to also have any data collected withdrawn. information that could affect the subjects’ consent to participate was not withheld, thereby retaining a means for them to protect their own interests. it is worth adding that the research questions and themes were emergent from the observational data, so it was arguably difficult to fully inform those observed about the nature of the research. a copy of the completed paper was sent to the friend/ contact, with the purpose of obtaining respondent validation and giving them the opportunity to express their views on the themes, issues and perspectives explored. the contact in question was able to provide initial valuable access to relevant primary and secondary sources, additional contacts and links, as well as facilitating and supporting access to a range of experiences and social situations, including formal and informal public meetings, a protest camp, and a number of rallies and petitioning campaigns. the researcher’s role was made explicit, as was the nature of the researcher as overtly partisan in support of the antifracking movement, though the paper is by no means an uncritical account. it is also important to add that not all those encountered during the course of the research were identically or similarly informed about the nature of the research. the researcher came into contact with a wide range of people across different contexts and it was not always practicable or desirable to offer everyone the same opportunity for informed consent, not 157 least because it would be difficult and potentially disruptive of the process to provide a complete account to everyone encountered of the aims, purpose and process of the research. the names and personal information of those observed during the course of the fieldwork have been kept confidential and their anonymity and privacy respected and retained to ensure that individuals and places are not identified or identifiable, although there is awareness that these safeguards could be compromised upon secondary analysis of the data. during the course of the research, the researcher was not involved in any direct political action involving illegal activity. in terms of ‘getting out’ or leaving the group – relationships remained undamaged and the researcher has continued to be supportive of the movement and hopefully retained enough detachment to write an ‘impartial’ and accurate account. this research can be seen as an example of political, 'reflexive' ethnography and 'standpoint epistemology' (hammersley and atkinson, 1995, p.13-15). the researcher/activist was writing about the anti-fracking movement as a political, cultural and social/environmental movement. the aim of the study was to investigate and attempt to map the informal processes, experiential knowledge, shared meanings and interactions that make up this emergent and growing movement. the observational fieldwork, conducted in and across a variety of settings or social situations, involved an iterative process, or dialectical interaction, of data collection and analysis; an open-ended, reflexive activity, where the focus was continually developed and refined. this data was sifted to identify patterns, dominant meanings, themes and associations. all the while, it was important, as much as possible, to avoid imposing any preexisting interpretive framework or hermeneutic upon the data. it was important to try and capture the fr/activists own constructs, interpretations, dominant meanings, definitions, patterns, key themes, issues and concerns. it was hoped that the research could represent and articulate the 'voices' or narratives of local groups, voices that are too often marginalised in dominant discourses, whilst at the same time understanding that the process of construction of themes has a tendency to fragment the material, and can fail to capture the fluidity, contingency and complexity of a transforming movement. as both researcher and the researched, the researcher is necessarily engaged in a double hermeneutic, involving two levels of interpretation of reality as activist and researcher (maturana and bunnell, 1998). the study can be viewed as a second-order approach to social change and research, with a particular focus on what is known as active social learning, as opposed to passive social learning (meynell, 2005; glasser, 2007). passive social learning tends to be reliant on the preestablished social learning of others and does not require interaction or communicative action with others, whereas with active social learning, actions and behaviour that might contribute to environmental harm or good can be learned through participatory and collective processes. the concern was with the ways in which community views could be conceptualised and formalised in order to foster, promote and facilitate dialogue between the first order, topdown approach of government, corporations, public institutions and other representative structures, and the second order, bottom-up approach of local communities in a democratic and participatory decision-making process. the concern was that the positions and views of, on the one hand, corporations and public officials seeking to engage in the extraction of shale gas, and on the other, those opposed to these developments, were becoming increasingly polarised and entrenched. it became apparent during the course of the research that there was a tendency within the anti-fracking movement, perhaps unwittingly, to mirror the hierarchical thinking and structures, rationality and ideology of the neo-liberal corporations, society and institutions they were purportedly critically opposing. rather than being engaged 158 in an ongoing internal and external dialectical process and interaction, there was often evidence of a very binary, dichotomous and manichean approach, which uncritically viewed the anti-fracking movement as a force for pure good, confronting a purely evil force in the form of the shale gas industry and its representatives. a potential role for the social scientist and researcher could be as potential community facilitator, to help challenge and move away from hierarchical structures, be they political, economic, social or educational. 2.2 emergent themes from the anti-fracking movement a recurrent theme which emerged from the research was the way in which members of the movement are connecting the issue of fracking to related struggles; public power, global capitalism, democratic citizenship and macro-theories. it would be fair to say that many people in the movement regard themselves as activists/theorists, but this theorising tends at times to be in the form of conspiracy theories used to explain macro-power. these conspiracy theories, focussed on, amongst other things, 9/11, the illuminati, chemtrails, zionism, and reptilian, shape-shifting politicians, often requiring a great deal of cognitive effort and energy which may well be better expended in rational, immanent critique of political economy and public power. ultimately, the almost quasi-mystical and religious conviction in conspiracy theories can arguably lend itself to a dogmatic empiricism and 'authoritarian irrationalism' (adorno, 1994) that is resistant to refutation, critical reflection and social change. the research became particularly focused on the bridge and transition from micro-level, experiential knowledge to structural analysis, which tended not to be informed by a formal education in potentially relevant political ideologies, philosophies and traditions, such as feminism, marxism and anarchism. for instance, the preference for decentralised and localised forms of social and political organisation evident in the anti-fracking movement can be seen to resemble the anarchist vision of community. a key question perhaps is whether the movement could usefully draw upon these traditions, or whether these are anachronistic and obsolete, with something new emerging and forming. there was a discernible 'antiintellectual' tendency and stance in the movement, with a distrust of ‘elitist’ academia and ‘armchair technicians’ (tombs and whyte, 2003), all in favour of the existential superiority and moral authority of down to earth grass roots activism. this debate is of course mirrored in the history of the anarchist movement, where practical activity has often been elevated and sanctified over what is regarded as abstract theorising. as part of the researcher’s contribution to the online dimension of the struggle, a facebook page entitled 'artists and academics against fracking' was set up, which sought to unify theory, environmental philosophy and practice, but this was met on occasion by criticism by some in the movement who regarded it as inherently elitist and inessential. the facebook group was set up with the belief that there is a potential role for social science and political theory in the anti-fracking movement, and a possible role for the activist/ researcher as community facilitator. the movement is arguably in danger of becoming one-dimensional if it is not nourished by a variety of knowledge’s, discourses and stakeholders. often, natural science is drawn upon in support of arguments against fracking and in the face of the powerful ‘greenwashing’ public relations machine of the shale gas industry, but seldom, it seems, social scientific analysis. many in the anti-fracking movement have become “citizen scientists”, experts in understanding the science and technology behind fracking, often forming alliances with 'counter-experts' (beck, 1999) in order to challenge and resist the dominant, government sponsored knowledge and expertise. 159 arguably, however, the social science remains relatively underdeveloped. i argue that a variety of knowledges can be drawn upon relating to active social learning and there is a role for social science and political and social theory to play in developing ‘citizen social scientists’. a related issue would be how the movement, which began as a local concern, links to the geopolitical context and the global issue of climate change and ecological destruction. increasingly, during the period of the participant observation, activists appeared to move from what might be described as parochial ‘nimbyism’ to a more cosmopolitan position of not in anyone's backyard (niaby) (macgregor, 2007) and a critique of globalising processes and their effects. this translocalism was characterised by a connection of the fracking issue to the passage of ttip (the transatlantic trade and investment practice) and its potential negative implications for local communities and democracies. in addition, many in the movement have become critical of neo-liberalism and the corporatisation and commodification of nature and natural resources, with a particular focus on water. a few prominent members of the antifracking movement have become involved in wider green politics and some have stood for election as members of the green party. others have been attracted to the green left, ecosocialism and social ecology. this presents a more optimistic picture for the prospects and potentiality of the movement. however, it could be argued that, following murray bookchin's social ecology, links still need to be made between social and environmental degradation and that the two should be viewed as inextricably linked. bookchin would argue that hierarchical thinking has to be addressed in the social world and economic world, at the same time as the natural world (bookchin, 1980). the anti-fracking movement could learn from this social ecology and libertarian municipalism in the move to organise society differently. social ecology has its philosophical origins in neo-marxism, most notably the critique of instrumental reason and the link between the domination of man over man and man over nature made by the first generation critical theorists of the frankfurt school (adorno, 1969). it also has historical antecedents in anarchist traditions that address the ecological destruction in terms of different patterns of social domination, such as capitalism, patriarchy and racism. a notable event during the period of observational fieldwork was the conspicuous absence of members of the anti-fracking movement from the jeremy corbyn labour leadership rally in preston in 2015, where corbyn, local councillors and trade unionists all expressed opposition to fracking. the fracking issue proved to be a key theme at the rally. many on the green left have been attracted back to the parliamentary labour party under jeremy corbyn, frustrated and alienated in the past by the party’s narrow, economistic approach, and by its shift away from the principles of social democracy and social justice. the lack of an anti-fracking presence at the corbyn rally is arguably indicative and revealing of a deficiency in the movement, in that it can sometimes be seen to fail to embrace and support a variety of mechanisms for facilitating and engendering change. from the research, it was found that the women activists evinced an approach to experience and knowledge that may present the possibility of a new activism and a nascent new politics. as already stated, the study represented a spatial-temporal snapshot of an evolving movement and the complex, historically and synchronically contingent identity work and agentic processes of its members. what emerged was that the anti-fracking movement is not a homogenous, unified entity, but a diverse and transforming one, with possible evidence of class and gender divisions. like other historical social and political movements, there is evidence of internal division and potential fracturing. an example of possible class division 160 could be seen at the 2014 'reclaim the power' action training camp at little plumpton, near blackpool, and also the different modes and mechanisms of protest and their social composition. reclaim the power can be seen as middle class professional activists, equipped with experience, expertise, organisational skills and finance. however, there were occasions when there was a discernible strain between these professional activists and grassroots activists. frack free lancashire tended to believe in the power and efficacy of petitioning, letters to local mps', councillors and peaceful occupations of fracking associated businesses, with a certain level of belief in the mechanisms of the existing democratic process. this belief has perhaps been somewhat shattered by the announcement that the much celebrated decision by lancashire county council to reject fracking would effectively be rendered null and void by what david cameron deemed the national interest, effectively running roughshod over local democracy. this all adds to a growing sense that traditional political institutions are broken and that petitioning alone will not stop fracking. frack free lancashire's mode of political action can be seen as being in stark contrast to the self-styled ‘protectors’ of barton moss, where some female activists complained of sexism, aggressiveness and drinking on the camp, which was viewed as potentially damaging to the public image-making of the movement. these anxieties and concerns were subsequently expressed prior to the little plumpton ‘reclaim the power’ action training camp, and a quite heated online and offline debate ensued over its regulation and ethos. of course, there is a long history of factionalism and splintering in progressive social and political movements, but with many in the anti-fracking movement being new to formal politics these historical lessons may not be heeded. a key question is whether these internal divisions should be elided or seen as a source of strength. it is argued here that rather than striving to maintain a single voice, as some members of the movement seemed to be, plurality should be embraced. the anti-fracking movement can be seen as expressive of a community of interest and a community of practice, engaged in active social learning towards environmental responsibility and ‘second-order’ social change. successful active social learning depends on the collective goals of those engaged in a collaborative process, which also depends on the plural space for possible conflicts, contradictions and oppositions. differences arguably need to be discussed and deconstructed, not concealed or regarded as negative. this can arguably only make social and political movements more resilient and responsive to challenges from outside and within. social learning, as an ongoing dialectical process, requires critical analysis of one’s own norms and constructions (deconstruction), exposure and respectful and mindful openness to different views (confrontation) and constructions of new ones (reconstruction) – all as an ongoing process of unity-in-diversity that avoids reification. the political can be viewed as the site, plural space and intersubjective realm, where individuals as citizens can meet as equals, collectively self-determine, co-create knowledge and take concerted action in active citizenship and social learning (glasser, 2007). what appears to have taken precedence in the anti-fracking movement is a maternal politics of care, represented by, at first, ‘mothers against fracking’ and later ‘nana's against fracking’, which can also be seen as an attempt to soften the image away from the barton moss profile. whether this image (knitting and baking nana's with feather dusters, tea dresses, head scarves and other domestic regalia) is counter-productive or positive is an issue worth exploring. some might say that the largely female activists involved in this mode of protest will be viewed as women first and activists second, and also, as this paper goes on to explore, 161 there is the danger of sociological essentialism and a retreat from the hard-won gains of first and second wave feminism, to the detriment of sustained critical focus on the power structures that determine family life and reproduce capitalism. this emphasis on female environmental activism has a long, recent, global history, as can be seen from the example of the women of love canal (krauss, 1997). in the case of the anti-fracking movement, nana's were involved on the frontline at little plumpton and were responsible for the initial, vanguard occupation of the farmer’s field, which remains a designated site for caudrilla's operations. the site occupation was carried out in the middle of the night and the researcher was with some of the women before they embarked on their covert mission. it was seen as essential that it was an exclusively female action and one prominent activist withdrew from the action when she discovered that men/ ‘honoury nana’s’ had been included. the politicisation of women, many of whom told me that they were previously largely apolitical and trusting of politicians, is a key theme to emerge from my ethnographic fieldwork and central to the discussion here. there can be seen to be two stages in this process of politicisation. firstly, there is the awareness of environmental problems, and, in the case of the anti-fracking movement, this can be seen in the seismic tremors of 2011 in blackpool, which was ‘highly probably’ caused by cuadrilla test drilling in the area (jowit and gersmann, 2011). this can be seen as a seminal, founding and consciousness-raising event, and a political entry-point in the anti-fracking movement, along with immediate concerns about people’s children's and grand-children's futures. what was commonly reported by members of the movement, and a point that echoes the work of macgregor (2007), is a growing disillusionment with government and a shift away from unquestioning acceptance of authority. women in the movement seemed increasingly shocked and dismayed at the actions and behaviour of previously trusted public officials, authorities and experts. one leader of the movement described this as a growing up process, beyond a previous state of what might be described as 'infantile citizenship' (berlant, 1997). this awakening extends to the view of the police and the policing of protest camps and demonstrations. the police can be seen as involved in the criminalisation of protest, the protection of corporate interests over those of the people, and accusations have been made regarding heavy-handed policing and privatised policing, including ongoing allegations of “sexualised violence” towards female activists at barton moss (gilmore et al, 2016; gayle, 2016). 2.3 a ‘new’ politics? ecofeminism and feminist ecological citizenship. there can be no doubting the successes and achievements of the anti-fracking movement and its significance as a social and political movement. the issue has politicised and 'conscientized' (friere, 1970) people and can be viewed as a potential catalyst for further active citizenship and social change. women are arguably drawn to environmental activism because, as mothers and nanas, they fear for their children’s/ grandchildren’s health and future. a key question is whether the issue of fracking will prove to be an effective gateway to other political issues and debates. does the anti-fracking movement offer the promise of a new politics, a politics of care? it often seems in the anti-fracking movement that motherhood and the family have taken on existential priority and moral superiority over the political and first-order change. while not self-identifying as being eco-feminist, the grassroots anti-fracking movement can arguably be 162 understood as an example of quality-of-life eco-feminist activism. however, the experiential knowledge and insights of these activists arguably remain theoretically underdeveloped. ecofeminism is not a unified, homogenous entity and includes activities ranging from political action to a growing and varied body of theoretical and empirical research which aims to explore connections between the domination and exploitation of women and that of the natural world, and to challenge these structural practices and processes. crucially, ecofeminists disagree about the nature of these connections and whether or not they have liberatory potential or are actually reproducing and reinforcing gender hierarchy, stereotypes and oppression. eco-feminists often find themselves in the problematic situation of challenging not only mainstream ecological thought, but more importantly perhaps secondwave feminism. one variant of eco-feminism, which may prove useful for understanding the anti-fracking movement, is that which has a celebratory and uncritical acceptance of women’s heightened sense of environmental responsibility and the discourse of mothering practices and maternal care. here the private virtues of family, the needs of children, love and care, a sense of rootedness to place are extolled and valorised, and given almost holy status, immune to rational critique and debate. however, as dietz (1985) argues, these virtues may lend themselves to a deeply conservative, moralising, ‘holier than thou’ and reactionary outlook. the family, and the necessarily hierarchical mother-child relationship, is arguably not a good model and existential ground for a new politics, public consciousness and citizenship. dietz questions whether care for one's own children can be generalised to care for others, as the former is necessarily exclusive and specific. i argue here, following dietz (1985), that although it has proven a useful entry-point to politics, maternal care and mothering is not the best ground for continuing political action, active social learning and active citizenship, and that the mutual respect of an ideal friendship offers a better model, in that the latter, ideally at least, is egalitarian rather than hierarchical. there is no evidence that maternal thinking can be theoretically or causally connected to a more ethical political life, with responsibility to others, and in fact, maternal thinking may lend itself, at worst, to an ‘amoral familism’ (banfield, 1958) that potentially excludes the other. being a good mother does not necessarily make someone a good citizen and vice-versa. a possible antidote is to develop the radical discourse of feminist ecological citizenship, which addresses gender inequality and environmental responsibility (macgregor, 2007). democratic citizenship and active social learning would involve citizens who are not intimate with each other, but politically involved with one another. in the anti-fracking movement, maternal care may be an entry-point into environmental politics, but it arguably should not take existential priority. eco-feminism has a tendency to neglect a critical analysis of neo-liberal privatisation in an inegalitarian society and the increasing pressures and demands put on women exploited in unpaid caring practices during the current global economic crisis of capitalism. it also perhaps neglects the precarity of activists’ existence and hence the often unsustainable nature of political and social/ environmental movements in the face of increasing 'ontological insecurity' (beck, 1999). this ontological insecurity also arguably extends to teachers working in neo-liberal institutions, who may be forced into conformity and lack of creative experimentation, desisting from immanent critique, critical research agendas and critical pedagogical practice in the face of the stranglehold of neo-liberal managerialist imperatives and basic economic necessity. in this sense, precariatisation militates against the possibility of critical opposition and conscientisation, and can act as a means and instrument of social control (tombs and whyte, 163 2003). feminist ecological citizenship would seek to combine both public and private realms and emphasise their permeability in its approach to environmental responsibility, active social learning and political action. this is in marked contrast to hannah arendt’s dichotomy of public and private, which, following aristotle, dismisses the possibility of freedom exercised in private mundane acts of caretaking and the realm of necessity (dietz, 1985). these mundane aspects of the social lifeworld are, however, being publically disclosed in the politics of being and care which is a central characteristic of the anti-fracking movement. arendt gives existential priority to the public realm of the political over mothering practices, maternal thinking and care. however, arendt’s notion of freedom and political action remains an alternative to the dominant liberal-philosophical and instrumentalist notions and offers a useful model for active social learning, citizenship and concerted political action: “the appearance of freedom … coincides with performing act. men are free – as distinguished from the possessing of the gift of freedom – as long as they act, neither before nor after, for to be free and to act are the same thing” (arendt, 1968, pp.152-153). in the dominant notion of political freedom in western liberal-democracies, freedom and sovereign control are viewed as identical and this can be seen to have consequences in terms of the continuing degradation and exploitation of the social and natural world. sovereign freedom and possessive mastery, which may be identified with masculinist politics, entails sovereign control over the initiation and outcomes of action. this view of freedom, based on cartesian dualism and sovereign selfconstituting subjectivity, lends itself to an androcentric epistemology that promotes an instrumentalist world-view and technological attitude to nature. feminist ecological citizenship seeks to redefine what we mean by the political and the meaning of citizenship and ‘politics’ (macgregor, 2007). it challenges the philosophical bases and political assumptions of liberalism, with its public-private distinction, by including a variety of power relations and viewing the personal as political. rather than the traditional, narrow focus on politics as empirical policy-making and the decision-making of political institutions, feminist ecological citizenship has ideas and principles which are compatible, if not identical with those of anarchism. like anarchists they argue that state institutions should be more accountable to citizens and communities and they seek to replace ‘politics’ with ‘the political’ as the transforming, contingent, unpredictable, open, plural space in which the actions of citizens and multiple stakeholders intersect (arendt, 1968). for arendt, the basis for freedom is the renunciation of the much cherished sovereignty and possessive mastery that remains the dominant source of human dignity and self-worth for individuals in contemporary liberal-democracies. this is not to say that these hard-won and still inadequately realised freedoms, that benefit both men and women without degrading the social and natural world, should be neglected, but that what might be called ‘disclosive freedom’ (thiele, 1995) offers an existential grounding and spatial-temporal framework for the co-creation and preservation of the political realm and the promise of a qualitatively different relationship between self and other based upon mutual respect. arendt tends to focus on the co-creation of political freedom through the performance of words and deeds, but arguably neglects the preservation and caretaking of this public realm and the natural world. arendt dichotomises private and public realms and in doing so is arguably inadvertently reproducing a gender hierarchy, liberal and patriarchal formulations of political and social identities, and masculinist biases that privilege the public sphere and depreciate the political 164 significance of the private realm. her view of the private realm neglects the predominately feminine concern with forming and maintaining relationships and community that informs environmental activism involving women, including the anti-fracking movement. a politics of being and care, and indeed ethnographic research itself, involves an understanding of identities being grounded in our relatedness to the world and others and the ongoing interpretive struggle of the situated self and other engaged in a co-creation and preservation of a shared social and natural world. here the self who is engaged in this interpretive struggle for understanding recognises its relationship to others as being constitutive of its own being and freedom. this is very different to the restrictive sense of freedom and politics based on sovereign control, possessive mastery and a hobbesian struggle for self-assertion (thiele, 1995) and would involve a fundamental shift in human knowledge and values, as well as in social, political and economic institutions. 3. conclusion there is a need to critically analyse, engage with and work towards social, environmental, cultural and political transformation through active social learning, active citizenship and a caretaking of the public realm and political freedom. we can still arguably socially learn from hannah arendt, and other political philosophers who stand in the tradition of civic republicanism, as well as the history of other social and political movements and a variety of critical pedagogies, political ideologies and traditions (dietz, 1985; macgregor, 2007). ecofeminism, by seeking to politicise maternal care as the existential ground for an alternative politics of care, offers a useful but one-sided account, as does arendt in her over-emphasis on the public realm as the plural space for creation, a narrative which arguably neglects caretaking and safeguarding of the social and natural world. of course, the dominant liberal stress on freedom as sovereign control and possessive mastery also gives a one-dimensional account, but this freedom is still important and in need of defending. i conclude that feminist ecological citizenship attempts to combine all these elements in a many-sided narrative that offers a useful theoretical and practical approach to understanding the limitations and potentiality of the anti-fracking movement. the enemies of the 'open society' may ultimately be neo-liberal institutions, but also social and political movements like the anti-fracking movement, unless the conditions for genuine, open dialogue and mutual respect are preserved and co-created, both within public institutions and progressive social movements, but also between the two. references adorno, t. 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(1987) the tree of knowledge: the biological roots of human understanding, boston and london: shambhala publications. meynell, f. (2005) “a second-order approach to evaluating and facilitating organisational change”, action research, vol.3, no.2, pp. 211-31. ruggiero, v. and south, n. (2010) “green criminology”, special edition of critical criminology – an international journal, vol.18, no.4, pp.251-262. schon, d.a. (1995) 'the new scholarship requires a new epistemology', change, vol.27, no.6., pp.27-34. thiele, l.p. (1995) timely meditations: martin heidegger and postmodern politics, new jersey: princeton university press. tombs, s. and whyte, d. (2003) unmasking the crimes of the powerful: scrutinizing states and corporations, new york: peter lang publishing. wadsworth, y. (1997) do it yourself research, st leonards, nsw: allen & unwin. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 44 beyond the curriculum and the classroom: a case study of a curriculum enhancement programme in an english secondary school copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 44-64 rachel jackson liverpool john moores university r.m.jackson@2015.ljmu.ac.uk abstract this paper reports on findings from the author’s masters of education project in which classics as an after-school curriculum enhancement programme was offered to year 9 pupils (aged 13-14) in a maintained school in salford. the programme also incorporated excursions to supplement the extracurricular lessons delivered by the researcher (a qualified english and classics teacher) whilst working as a teacher of english at the secondary school. qualitative and quantitative data from a questionnaire (n=14), a focus group (n=5) and observations are presented here as a case study into the perceived impact of this curriculum enhancement programme on the participants, half of whom were identified by the school as ‘disadvantaged’. 1. background and aims 1.1 policy context since the introduction of the national curriculum in the 1988 education reform act made it too difficult for many maintained schools to justify classics (the study of ancient greek and roman civilisations) on the more limited timetable of subjects to be taught (forrest, 1996, p. 44), it became typical for only academically selective schools to offer the subject. classics as prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 45 a school discipline, therefore, became typically associated with elite educational institutions such as grammar and fee-paying schools (hall, 2015). at the time this research was conducted (2015), the department for work and pensions had proposed that it was the education system’s responsibility to ensure that ‘all children – irrespective of their background – have the foundations they need to realise their potential’ (dwp, 2015, p. 1). however, england’s education system, consists of several different kinds of school (maintained, academy, free, grammar, fee-paying), meaning that children start their educational journey on unequal grounds. as reay points out, the hypocrisy of ‘the current policy status quo is one that valorizes choice whilst recognizing that choices come with resources that remain very unequally distributed’ (2012, p. 2). more recent research in grammar schools found that children need access to the educational opportunities (sardoc and mason, 2016) and resources (peterson, 2017) that many children from poorer backgrounds do not get. this explains why only 2.4% of grammar school places are assigned to those eligible for free school meals (andrews et al., 2016), used as a proxy for socioeconomic disadvantage. young people able (or enabled) to attend these prestigious schools, if available in their geographical vicinity, are offered more curricular opportunities (such as the opportunity to study classics) and have more educational opportunities beyond the classroom, that put them at an advantage in the future (cochran et al., 2011). it is precisely these ‘opportunities’ which were offered as part of this project, specifically the opportunity for year 9 (aged 13-14) pupils in a non-selective maintained school to study classics during an after-school class and go on excursions. 1.2 background my own attendance at a non-selective maintained secondary school that did not offer classics meant that i only discovered it as a discipline at sixth-form college. i was then inspired to take english and classical literature at a russell group university, followed by a teaching diploma in english and classical studies (as it is known in scotland), again at a university in the russell group. although i qualified as a teacher of both english and classics, the two maintained schools i taught at did not offer classics, so i was unable to teach the subject that inspired me so much. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 46 i did however offer an after-school curriculum enhancement programme of classics, originally targeted at pupils identified by the school as ‘more able’ according to their academic attainment. encouraged to be a more reflective practitioner during my masters of education (med), however, i began to see how ‘this may reinforce the stereotype of classics as a particularly elitist subject’ (gibbs, 2003, p. 38), which wilkinson (2003) blames on classics teachers themselves. with the national curriculum already ‘narrow and elitist’ (gillborn, 2001, p. 110) further privileging those marked out as ‘gifted and talented’ (as they have been known as in the past) adds to the sense that education is ‘rationed’. so as not to deepen the stereotyping of classics as elitist, the revised curriculum enhancement project reported in this paper was open to all year 9 students. 1.3 aims of the research as part of the practitioner research that formed the med dissertation, i generated some insights into the potential of offering classics as a curriculum enhancement programme taught after school and off-site. although the after-school class, branded classics class, was offered to all year 9 pupils, the research focused upon young people experiencing some form of disadvantage. the academic attainment of young people characterised as ‘disadvantaged’ is a government priority (dfe, march 2013) and had a personal relevance for me as someone from an economically disadvantaged background, as identified by eligibility for free school meals. the label for disadvantage used in schools now is called ‘pupil premium’ or referred to by the (rather loaded) term ‘deprivation pupil premium’ (education funding agency, march 2015). the pupil premium indicator (ppi) has its limitations; children may be in receipt of pupil premium for reasons other than economic deprivation, for example if they have spent some time in care, and identification often requires parents to apply for financial aid in the form of free school meals. hence there will be unidentified children experiencing ‘deprivation’ as defined by the department for education (dfe, december 2013). the project delivered in the final term of 2015, aimed to have a positive impact upon a group of year 9 students in two ways. firstly, via curriculum enhancement in the form of a classics class delivered after school using my own expertise as a qualified teacher as well as visits from a classics phd student at the university of manchester and a greek actor at the university of salford who had recently played the ancient greek poet, sappho in a play. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 47 secondly, through excursions to educational establishments: manchester museum, manchester art gallery and the university of cambridge, including their cast gallery and fitzwilliam museum. 2. cultural capital the bourdieusian concept of ‘cultural capital’ was useful for this study, though not without its flaws, as hannon et al. (2017) also identify in their study of a similar project. they acknowledge that valuing the mores of the dominant class at the expense of the those of lower ‘socio-economic groups’ as they put it (p. 1227) could reinforce inequality. a similar sentiment is expressed by giannakaki et al. (2018) who advance that the hegemony of ‘high culture’ discourages young people of ‘low-status households’ (p. 194) from embracing their own cultures. this is a rather stereotypical view of the interests of disadvantaged children which the curriculum enhancement programme, classics class challenges. rather than starting with the notion that children from disadvantaged backgrounds begin with a ‘deficit’ that is somehow their fault and not the societal reproduction of inequalities (as hannon et al. (2017) warn) this project merely offered cultural opportunities which participants would not have ordinarily due to the inequalities of the school system. it is acknowledged that more affluent children enjoy economic as well as cultural advantages (sullivan, 2002) and simply offering a course usually taught in privileged educational arenas will not correct this imbalance. giannakaki et al. (2018, p. 197) go further, theorising that it could actually prove damaging if the ‘‘have-nots’ are exposed to the benefits enjoyed by those possessing legitimate culture/power, they will aspire to become like them, reinforcing the oppressive regime weighted against them’. this is only a possibility if participants are led to believe that possessing the cultural capital gained as part of the course would be an automatic means of upward social mobility. it was not the intention to perpetuate the misconception that the education system is so meritocratic, as sullivan (2002) warns could be the case with interventions aimed at enhancing cultural capital. the intention was not to claim that this curriculum enhancement programme would act as a panacea to the inequalities of the school system; rather, it offered ‘cultural participation’, which sullivan’s (2002) review of empirical studies has shown to be generally advantageous. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 48 the benefits of classics as cultural capital and the different contexts in which this extracurricular programme was taught are now outlined. 2.1 the benefits of classics classics ‘used to be seen as “the secret garden” of the curriculum’ (gay, 2003, p. 21), implying that the subject was considered exclusive in the past, but various initiatives have instigated a ‘democratic turn’ (paul, 2013, p. 143). the cambridge online latin project, for example, was deemed successful (department for education and employment, 2001) in providing material to teach latin in non-selective schools. gay (2003) focuses upon why some primary schools have adopted the latin minimus project and concludes that the course has intrinsic value: it complements history and english work, and contributes to the ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural’ (smsc) development of a child as recommended by office for standards in education (ofsted 2004), which was also noted by shannon (2003). however, he also found that the inclusion of classics in the state sector was thought to raise the status of schools (gay, 2003), therefore perpetuating the elitism of the subject. other initiatives have redressed the perception of classics as elite by highlighting that it can be inclusive. paul (2013) found that the cambridge latin course (clc) ‘offers a kind of empowerment’ (paul, 2013, p. 148) and the cambridge school classics project (cscp), also, aims ‘to make the classical world accessible to as many students as possible, whatever their age, whatever their ability’ (wilkinson, 2003, p. 113). classics is identified by hubbard (2003, p.53) as, in fact, more accessible, ‘not because the subject is easier but because the thought, forms and structure of the ancient world, being early precursors of our own, embody them in their most direct and simple form’. classics as the subject content of the curriculum enhancement programme is therefore justified. in those schools where classics is offered, shannon (2003) found that extra-curricular activities and visits to museums made some classics departments more successful and provided examples from a fee-paying school and a comprehensive school. the potential benefits of excursions more generally is now outlined. 2.2 the benefits of excursions a review of studies into field trips highlights that opportunities for such trips has decreased (dewitt and storksdieck, 2008) despite having some academic benefits as well as prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 49 affective impact, if well designed. features of successful trips according to dewitt and storksdieck’s (2008) review can be identified as: a) structural (teacher input and planned activities before during and after the visit) b) socio-cultural (the novelty of the destination and social interactions whilst there). taking heed of this advice, my excursions were structured, with focused tasks planned that did not inhibit freedom to explore the two museums and galleries. the visit to manchester art gallery took the form of a treasure hunt whereby students had to work in groups to find the answers to questions about mythology located in the paintings or their descriptions. at manchester museum, ipads were made available so the students, again working in groups, could photograph material they thought answered questions assigned to them by museum staff. the trip to the university of cambridge was especially justified by its unique nature that could not have been replicated in the classroom or any local context. the artefacts of the fitzwilliam museum allowed students to see examples of what they had learned about during classes and the cast gallery provided an idea of the scale of the statues that they had only previously seen in pictures. the social interactions advised in the literature were particularly noticeable at the university of cambridge. the young people were given a tour of accommodation by a current student, who encouraged them by telling them how she was the first in her farming family to go to university. they also enjoyed lunch at selwyn college with two recent classics graduates who told them about the collegiate system of the university and regaled them with tales of dinners in academic dress etc. 3. methodology fichtman dana and yendol-silva (2003), who study the classroom research of a reflective practitioner, asserted that it was the: juxtaposition of…different data sources, and her reflexions upon them, as much as the understandings generated by each in isolation, that helped to free up her thinking and gain new perspectives upon her particular area of concern (p.248) prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 50 similarly, my practitioner research uses a multi-method approach, recommended for ‘the teacher-as-researcher movement’ by cohen et al. (2002). qualitative data was gathered via a focus group, observations and a survey of open-ended questions, although answers to these were then quantified according to the socio-economic background of the respondents, as identified by the ppi. other quantitative data on programme attendance was also helpful in interpreting the impact of the curriculum enhancement project. 3.1 methods it was thought that a focus group would be the best way to capture the all-important child’s perspective (punch and oancea, 2014). the main focus was whether they thought participation in the programme had changed their opinion on anything, with a particular emphasis on ‘university’ and ‘careers’ prompted as it was originally hoped that exposing the participants to some of the opportunities enjoyed in elite schooling would raise their career aspirations. although i now realise that ‘it is optimistic to think that education provision alone can overcome structural inequalities in society’ (pollard, 2014, p. 481), it was a starting point for the research. taking inspiration from watson’s (2012), learning to liberate, in which the education of the disadvantaged in community-based organisations in the united states was studied, a questionnaire ‘to probe how they experience the program and whether or not they find it beneficial’ (p. 181) was also issued. this anonymous paper questionnaire also served to uncover perceptions that the participants may feel uncomfortable sharing as a group. the survey consisted of open-ended questions ‘giving appropriate weight to the views of the child’ in line with the united nations convention on the rights of the child, 1989 (pollard (2014, p. 481). although the questionnaire was completed anonymously, i was careful to keep those completed by pp students separate to see if there was any difference for these individuals who are deemed officially ‘disadvantaged’. as a teacher at the school, i had the additional method of observation at my disposal (tillema et al., 2008), which is a standard practice that pupils are aware of. these reflections, as a teacher-researcher, were recorded in a journal and the participants and their guardians were aware of the use of these written observation notes. the additional method of observation offered another layer of insight into the impact that the curriculum enhancement programme had on participants that maybe even they were not aware of, thus would not prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 51 appear in the questionnaire or focus group. these observation notes supplemented the information gathered in the focus group and questionnaire, allowing for the multiple views of ‘reality’ that are favoured in the ‘interpretive zone' (tillema, 2008). these observations were mainly used to supplement the voices of five main ‘case pupils’ from the focus group, allowing me to construct ‘portraits’ (watson, 2012) of these individuals. 3.2. ethical considerations in accordance with the ethical guidelines published by the british educational research association (bera) in 2011 (as this was the most up-to-date version at the time) approval for pupils to participate in the research was sought from guardians as well as the young people themselves. the consent and assent forms were approved by the ethics committee at the university of glasgow, the awarding institution of this med. as required by the ethics committee, a plain language statement detailing the use of survey, focus group and observation was also provided. this document explained the purpose of the research, emphasising the right to withdraw without consequence. parents and participants were also assured that the only potential ‘harm’ might occur from missing lessons to attend the excursions. disruption to schooling was, however, kept to a minimum by visiting local sites during lunch time on wednesdays when core lessons (i.e. english and math) were not taught that afternoon. furthermore, pupils were also only permitted to participate in the excursions if their overall school attendance was above 90%. as a teacher at the school, i was aware that the power dynamic may have led the young people to participate out of obligation, which was not the intention. to mitigate against any sense of coercion, i did not press pupils for completed forms (as i did with the consent forms for the excursions, as required by law). no coercion was apparent, as not all members of the voluntary after-school class participated in the med investigation. only 14 returned their parental consent forms out of the 28 year 9 students who attended at least one after-school session voluntarily. despite interesting observations of some of the other 14 attendees, these could not be included. whist it was acknowledged in the consent form that participation in the focus group would reveal the identities of the assenting pupils, all other measures to protect privacy were put into place when reporting of the findings. confidentiality was assured via the use of pseudonyms, explained next. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 52 3.3. participants the programme was offered to the target population at an assembly delivered to all 199 year 9 pupils, so the project could be as inclusive as possible. although only a small sample of 14 self-selecting young people consented to participate in this study, consenting individuals did have discrete and identifiable characteristics, by chance, divided equally between those in receipt of pupil premium and those not. once the regular attenders were analysed in terms of the data held by the school and shared with teachers as standard, it became clear that there were four distinct categories: 1. pupil premium (pp) 2. higher attainers (ha) 3. pp and ha 4. non-pp/ha. though not representative, this range added to the breadth of the data gathered to allow comparisons between different demographics. coded pseudonyms have been assigned according to these identifiers and adhering to gender-specific names. students on the pupil premium (pp) register were assigned a name beginning with the letter ‘p’ (n=5). if these individuals are also classed as higher attainers, their pseudonym begins with ‘b’ for ‘both’ (n=2). higher attainers (ha) begin with ‘h’ (n=2). students who are not in these categories were given names starting with ‘n’ for ‘non-pp/ha’ (n=5). 3.4 limitations nelson and o’beirne (2014, p.29) assert that practitioner research is often ‘observation or small-scale qualitative studies, and therefore is unlikely to be replicable. it provides a starting point for discussion however’. as a novice teacher-researcher, i acknowledge the limitations of my methods but maintain that the presentation and analysis of the findings i gathered offer insights into the benefits of the classics class programme. for example, in hindsight, a focus group with 14 teenagers becomes rather unfocused for some and more focused upon the loquacious individuals of the group (robson, 2005). as a consequence, i was able to construct more in-depth portraits of five individuals from the group rather than presenting superficial findings of all of them. like hannon et al. (2017, p.1231), who in a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 53 similar study had a small sample of 14 year-olds, the findings are ‘illuminative rather than generalisable’. there were also limitations to using a questionnaire, which is why this method was not relied upon and only formed part of this research. attempting to quantify perceptions in questionnaires is problematic, as ‘attitudes’ are difficult to capture in surveys (silverman, 2013). also, although clarity of questions was carefully considered (gilbert, 1993), the final main question (before the section for ‘final comments’) had clearly been misunderstood. there were, however, observation data to supplement the limited survey findings. there is, however, the danger of a magnified ‘hawthorne effect’ due to not only the researcher being physically present (robson, 2005), but also being the teacher of the programme, and of english in the school, though many of the participants were not my pupils. observations can always be critiqued as being subjective, but this is to be embraced in the interpretive paradigm where it is acknowledged that ‘the researcher is a unique individual and that all research is essentially biased by each researcher’s individual perceptions’ (pollard, 2014, p. 7). 3.5 analysis content analysis was employed to categorise the latent content of questionnaire answers in a high-inference system (robson, 2003) of grouping similar answers to identify possible trends. survey data was also quantified according to how many respondents gave similar answers and whether they were considered ‘pupil premium’ by the school. using quantitative data in this way ‘expands upon qualitative data and effectively deepens the description’ (mackenzie and knipe, 2006, p. 3) as it was then possible to detect any differences in effect upon students of differing backgrounds. an attendance register was also kept, as is routine procedure, and this provided helpful quantitative data to be analysed using the rag (red, amber, green) system common in schools. this basic code displays poor attendance (less than 90%) as red, acceptable attendance (90-96%) as amber and high attendance (above 97%) as green. a similar system was employed when calculating attendance at the after-school class, although because there were only twenty sessions available (including the excursions) and the class was competing prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 54 against other activities (see table 1), 50% attendance was coded amber and attendance above and below this coloured green and red respectively. this analysis was helpful when sampling participants for the portraits, which were used to present the qualitative data from the focus group and observations. paula (pp), beth (both pp and ha), hannah (ha) and nick and niamh (non-pp/ha) were chosen as they were highattenders in the programme (see appendix) and vocal in the focus group, therefore sufficient observation data was available to analyse. they also provided a range of ‘voices’ from different backgrounds, though it is not the intention to suggest that these are representative. the qualitative data from observations and the focus group were collated in ‘portraits’ that merely describe a sample of five participants. the way i have presented these inevitably reflects what i think is important (taylor and bogdan, 1984) but my analysis is broadly descriptive to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions from my findings. 4. findings findings from the questionnaire are displayed in tabular form divided into the effect of the curriculum enhancement programme on the two different types of consenting attendees i.e. whether the respondents were identified by the school as ‘pupil premium’ (pp) or not (non-pp). the accompanying narrative is separated into what was said about the curriculum content of the classes and about the excursions. some observations of the excursion element of the programme are then shared, followed by ‘portraits’ of the five case pupils from the group, which focus upon how the curriculum enhancement project may have altered their aspirations. 4.1. questionnaire answers curriculum content of classes whilst six of the seven non-pp respondents mentioned subject-specific reasons why they had joined the programme (question 1), compared with only three pp students, in question 3, subject-specific content was most frequently mentioned by pp respondents as what they ‘enjoyed the most’. in answer to this question, learning about ‘mythology’ was only mentioned by one non-pp respondent, whereas two pp students stated this, with another one being more specific about one particular lesson we did on ‘oracles’. these respondents prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 55 had clearly gained subject knowledge and, interestingly, it was ‘learning’ that was mentioned most frequently by pp participants as either what they enjoyed the most (n=3) or what would appeal to others (n=5). other interventions that seek to redress socio-economic inequalities have been critiqued as merely ‘improving a narrow set of skills’ (giannakaki, 2018, p. 194), but this programme evidently provided something ‘new’, which was frequently mentioned in answers from the pp cohort. all participants said that they would recommend the scheme to friends or younger relatives (question 5) and the curriculum content of the classes can be identified as a factor in this. some pupils evidently enjoyed the classes as they requested additional lunch time sessions because they did not want to miss out if they were unable to attend all after-school classes due to the conflicting activities mentioned in answer to question 2. attendance overall is displayed in the appended register. excursions for the non-pp respondents, it was the ‘trips’ that were (n=5) enjoyed the most, compared to two pp students who said something similar (question 3). however, question 4 revealed that going on trips appeared most frequently (n=3) by pp respondent in the answer to what they would like to do more, whereas only one non-pp said something similar. nespor (2000), who ethnographically studied school contexts in the united states of america, identified a feeling that working class students miss out most on opportunities for learning beyond the classroom, which could explain why this cohort were keen to have more of these experiences. unfortunately, question 7, which could have cast some light on this theory, was not answered accurately enough by those who were permitted by the school to participate in the excursions (according to their attendance). the survey therefore could not determine whether the excursions provided the students with experiences they would not otherwise have had access to. fortunately, observations were also made to supplement this data. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 56 table 1. answers pertaining to curriculum questions themes from main answers given pupil premium non-pupil premium q1. why did you voluntarily join classics class? wanted to learn about ancient history/ classics/ myths. 3 6 friend was doing it. 1 1 sounded fun/ ‘ok’. 2 0 wanted to try something new. 1 0 q2. if you missed any session, can you explain why this was? busy/ couldn’t go or simply ‘things’. 3 2 absence from school. 1 2 other school activities. 1 0 detentions. 2 0 thought they had not missed any. 0 2 not answered. 0 1 q3. what have you enjoyed the most? learning about mythology. 2 1 learning new things. 1 1 trips. 2 5 classical qi. 1 0 oracles. 1 0 q5. would you recommend the class? yes. 7 6 definitely. 0 1 q6. what in particular would appeal to others? learning new/ interesting things. 5 3 trips. 1 1 interactivity. 0 1 listening to stories. 0 1 quizzes. 0 1 not answered 1 0 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 57 table 2: answers pertaining to trips 4.2. observations observation provided the means of gauging just how new the other contexts of learning were for the participants, although it was difficult to differentiate between the disparate categories of students (pp/ ha/ pp + ha/ non-pp/ha). from a simple show of hands when organising the three excursions away from school, it would appear that: seven out of the eleven participants who attended the manchester museum excursion had been before; four out of ten had been to manchester art gallery; and only one pupil, natalie (non-pp/ma), said they had been to cambridge before. it can be inferred from these observations that many members of the group have, for whatever reason, not experienced some of the cultural opportunities even within their own geographical vicinity. giving members of the classics class the opportunity to visit what have been identified as ‘high culture’ sites, i.e. arts and history museums (nespor, 2000), gave participants more opportunities to inhabit these public spaces than are ordinarily taken up. questions themes from main answers given pupil premium non-pupil premium q4. what would you like to do more of? trips 3 1 learn more about fictional characters/ lifestyle of real people from that era. 2 4 working with more visitors. 0 1 classes more often. 0 1 not answered. 2 0 q7. had you been to any of the places we visited before? misunderstood question e.g. ‘went on trips’ 3 4 had been to manchester museum. 1 1 had been to manchester museum and art gallery. 0 1 had not been to any. 2 0 not answered. 1 1 further comments. have enjoyed classics. 2 3 really liked trip to cambridge. 0 1 not answered. 5 3 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 58 4.3. portraits nick in the focus group, nick talked a lot about ‘the trip to cambridge’ and how it ‘really like opened my eyes’, adding that it made him realise ‘how good some universities are’. he said that he ‘really enjoyed the visit’ and because of this ‘i might want to go someday’. although nick was not a ‘higher attainer’ according to the school’s data, he was a dedicated learner, as demonstrated by his being the highest attendance at the class (appendix). whilst nick’s contributions to the focus group seem to suggest that classics class was positive for him, one wonders whether he did actually believe that anyone in the group would actually make it to the university of cambridge as he was observed provocatively telling other members of the class that his sister thought the trip to cambridge was cruel in giving them false hope as it is unlikely that they will ever get to study there (paraphrased). the trip, and perhaps programme overall, had been interpreted as what berlant (2006) termed ‘cruel optimism’. hannah hannah, categorised as a ‘higher attainer’ by the school, told of how she ‘would like to be an animator or a writer coz i’m really passionate about writing and drawing’, going on to say ‘that’s not really changed’, although what has changed is that ‘before classics i wanted to go to manchester university but now i could try to go to cambridge’. hannon et al. (2017) told of how one of their participants gained a sense of hope from a visit to he but ‘some students were still reluctant to see themselves as belonging within universities that they deem ‘higherclass’’ (p. 1238). hannah also displayed this reluctance by adding ‘that’s highly not likely’, swiftly followed with ‘i could try.’. rather than the ‘cruel optimism’ implied by nick’s comments, what hannah added to her positive comments about the trip to cambridge university can be identified as ‘reluctant optimism’. she seemed conflicted between what the trip led her to aspire for and a reluctance to believe she could achieve this. paula the most frequent attender from the pupil premium category was paula, who talked a lot in the focus group about her ambitions, which did not include university. observation notes point to paula’s increased confidence in answering questions on the course. for example, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 59 when a classics phd student from the university of manchester visited the school to deliver a session and asked, ‘why learn about history?’, paula answered with an enthusiastic ‘’cause it’s interesting!’ having taught history to paula when she was in the first year of secondary school, her confidence appeared to have increased during the programme. of course, this may be due to natural maturation but anecdotal evidence from a colleague, who had known her in both a pastoral and an academic capacity for the duration of her schooling thus far, suggested that it had only been since starting the course that she had noticed paula’s increased confidence in english lessons. this colleague had not been asked to provide any evidence of this sort but felt compelled to approach me with her observations, such was her belief that the curriculum enhancement programme should be credited for the change. beth beth was a key student for me as she was on the pupil premium register and considered a ‘higher attainer’. during my own school days, i was identified using similar labels as ‘free school meals’ and ‘gifted and talented’ so i wondered whether she would, like myself and her fellow higher attainer, hannah, have aspirations to go to a prestigious university. she said that she ‘wanted to be a hairdresser at first but then i thought my mum works in a doctors’ surgery, so i thought maybe i could work as a child’s nurse’. although a noble profession that does require a degree, i was perplexed as to how she reached that decision from her mother working at a doctors’ surgery. when asked ‘not a doctor…?’, she responded with ‘no’ and could not explain why she had been inspired to be a nurse from her experience of a parent working in a doctors’ surgery. of course, nurses are located in doctors’ surgeries and it might be that the more caring role of a nurse appeals to her; but it could also be that her ‘higher attainment’ label is overshadowed by her socio-economic background, making her feel that being a doctor is out of her reach, despite displaying the academic aptitude that could get her there. niamh unlike beth, niamh was not categorised by the school as being a higher attainer, nor was she on the pupil premium register. niamh, again, unlike beth, spoke of being inspired by the trip to cambridge university: ‘seeing the different things you can do… and the beautiful scenery as well’. it is interesting that both nick and niamh spoke highly of the trip to cambridge university, when one might have expected the two higher attainers, hannah and prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 60 beth, to be most affected by a visit to a university they could more realistically aspire to attend. although it did have some impact upon hannah, beth was not as interested. 5. discussion and conclusion reay (2012, p.2) proposed a ‘totally different way of envisioning education’ which include ‘a revaluing of vocational and working-class knowledges and a broadening out of what constitutes educational success beyond the narrowly academic’. i am not sure what these ‘working class knowledges’ are but presumably the implication is that poorer people know different things that are equally as valuable. this study disrupts this notion by presenting evidence that young people identified by the ppi gained knowledge of a subject beyond the curriculum they were taught in school and furthermore, they enjoyed this new learning. disadvantaged children, therefore, can gain a lot if they are only given the chance to experience the cultural capital enjoyed by their more privileged peers in elite schools. nespor advocated that ‘field trips are signs of status. visiting and consuming exotic spaces are forms of symbolic capital and means of acquiring it’ (2000, p. 30). this project provided opportunities for young people to visit ‘exotic’ sites in the sense that many participants had not had the chance to experience them before. simply acquiring this capital, however, is not enough and some participants were aware of this, as evidenced in the ‘reluctant optimism’ of the higher attainer who remained unconvinced that she would gain a place at oxbridge, though the cambridge trip had inspired her to try. although some participants gained confidence, others, like the higher attaining pp student, remained unmoved, suggesting that access to opportunities does not affect the social inequalities inherent in society. it has recently transpired that at least three of those involved (nick, natalie and a pupil who did not return her consent form to be included in the study) have subsequently chosen classical civilisation as an a-level subject. as none are considered ‘disadvantaged’ by the ppi, however it would appear that young people in this demographic are still underrepresented in this subject. this is corroborated by the most recent available data on a-level uptake provided by one exam board, cambridge assessment. in 2011, 0.7% of students identified as ‘high deprivation’ took their classical civilization a-level but this dropped to 0.6% in 2016 compared with those identified as ‘low deprivation’ and ‘medium deprivation’, which remained at 0.8% for both categories (gill, 2012; carroll and gill, 2016). although this prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 61 difference may seem negligible, it does suggest that there is still a socio-economic divide in this discipline. 5.1 concluding thoughts what is evident from this study is that the curriculum enhancement programme had a positive impact upon the participants in the project and although this does not come close to counterbalancing the inequalities elsewhere in society, it still made some difference. the impact, though not quantifiable, has attracted the interest of other parties and a similar initiative has been repeated in a non-selective academy in liverpool, though this just went beyond the curriculum, not the classroom. it is possible for non-specialists to teach classics, too, and funding is available from the charity, classics for all, to facilitate teachers in the state sector who wish to try this. references andrew, j., hutchinson, j. and johnes, r. (2016). ‘grammar schools and social mobility’ [pdf]. retrieved from: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/grammar-schools-and-social-mobility_.pdf berlant, l. (2006). ‘cruel optimism’. differences: a journal of feminist cultural studies. 17(3), 20-36. british educational research association (2011). ‘ethical guidelines for educational research’. retrieved from: https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/bera-ethical-guidelines-2011.pdf?noredirect=1 carroll, m. and gill, t. (2017). ‘uptake of gce a level subjects 2016’, cambridge assessment. retrieved from: http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/images/420520-uptake-of-gce-a-level-subject-2016.pdf cochran, d. b., wang, e. w., stevenson, s. j., johnson, l. e. (2011). ‘adolescent occupational aspirations: test of gottfredson's theory of circumscription and compromise’. career development quarterly, 59 (5), 412427. retrieved from ebscohost: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=fdf10d5b-9ff0-469897b2ab0b2c56fbe8%40sessionmgr114&crlhashurl=login.aspx%253fdirect%253dtrue%2526db%253dtfh%2526a n%253d66638145%2526site%253dehostlive&hid=101&vid=0&bdata=jnnpdgu9zwhvc3qtbgl2zq%3d%3d#db=tfh&an=66638145 cohen, l., manion, l. and morrison, k. (2002). research methods in education, [e-book]. retrieved from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9780203029053 department for education and employment (2001). the result cambridge latin course – changing the face of latin? 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(2008). ‘a short review of school field trips: key findings from the past and implications for the future’. visitor studies. 11(2), 181-197. education funding agency and department for education (march 2015). ‘pupil premium final allocations 2014 to 2015 by school in england’ [excel] london: education funding agency and department for educaiton. retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2014-to-2015-finalallocations fichtman dana, n. and yendol-silva, d. (2003). the reflective educator’s guide to classroom research. thousand oaks, california: corwin press. forrest, m. (1996). modernising the classics. exeter: university of exeter press. gay, b. (2003). ‘classics teaching and the national curriculum’ in: moorwood, j. ed. the teaching of classics. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp.20-33. giannakaki, m., mcmillan, i. d. and karamichas, j. (2018). ‘problematising the use of education to address social inequity: could participatory action research be a step forwards? british educational research journal, 44(2), 191-211. doi:10.1002/berj.3323 gibbs, m. (2003). ‘the place of classics in the curriculum of the future’ in: moorwood, j. ed. the teaching of classics. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp. 36-42. gill, t. (2012). ‘uptake of gce a level subjects 2011’, cambridge assessment. retrieved from: http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/images/109931-uptake-of-gce-a-level-subjects-2011.pdf gillborn, d. (2001). ‘raising standards’ or rationing education? racism and social justice in policy and practice’. support for learning, 16(3). retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/14679604.00200/pdf hall, e. (2015). ‘classics for the people – why we should all learn from the ancient greeks’ in the guardian. retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/20/classics-for-the-people-ancient-greeks hannon, c., faas, d. and o'sullivan, k. (2017). ‘widening the educational capabilities of socio‐economically disadvantaged students through a model of social and cultural capital development’. british educational research journal (43), 1225-1245. doi:10.1002/berj.3309 hubbard, t. (2003). ‘special needs in classics’. in: moorwood, j. ed. the teaching of classics. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp.51-59. mackenzie, n. and knipe, s. (2006). ‘research dilemmas: paradigms, methods and methodology’, issues in educational research, 16(2), 193-205. nelson, j. and o’beirne, c. (2014). ‘using evidence in the classroom: what works and why?’ [pdf] slough: national foundation for educational research. retrieved from: http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/impa01/impa01.pdf nespor, j. (2000). ‘school field trips and the curriculum of public spaces’. journal of curriculum studies. 32(1), 25-43. office for standards in education (2004). promoting and evaluating pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. [pdf] london: ofsted. retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/402157/sjof-2-feb-15.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/402157/sjof-2-feb-15.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2014-to-2015-final-allocations https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2014-to-2015-final-allocations http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/images/109931-uptake-of-gce-a-level-subjects-2011.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(issn)1467-9604 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9604.00200/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9604.00200/pdf https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/20/classics-for-the-people-ancient-greeks http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/impa01/impa01.pdf prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 63 http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/filedownloading/?file=documents/surveys-and-goodpractice/p/promoting%20and%20evaluating%20pupils'%20spiritual,%20moral,%20social%20and%20cultur al%20development%20(pdf%20format).pdf&refer=1 paul, j. (2013). ‘the democratic turn in (and through) pedagogy’ in: hardwick and harrison. ed. classics in the modern world: a democratic turn? [e-book] oxford: oxford scholarship online. retrieved from: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673926.001.00 01/acprof-9780199673926-chapter-11 peterson, a. (2018). ‘civic republican social justice and the case of state grammar schools in england’, studies in philosophical education, 37, 167–179 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-017-9580-5 pollard, a. et al. (2014). reflective teaching in schools. 4th edition. london: bloomsbury. punch, k. f. and oancea, a. (2014). introduction to research methods in education. 2nd edition. london: sage. reay, d. (2012). ‘what would a socially just education system look like?’ [pdf] centre for labour and social studies. retrieved from: http://classonline.org.uk/docs/2012_diane_reay__a_socially_just_education_system.pdf robson, c. (2005). real world research. 2nd ed. oxford: blackwell sardoc, m. and mason, a. (2016). ‘fair equality of opportunity and selective secondary schools’. theory and research in education, 14(3), 295-312. shannon, r. (2003) ‘effective teaching and good practice in classics’. in: moorwood, j. ed. the teaching of classics. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp.43-50. silverman, d. (2013). doing qualitative research. 4th ed. london: saga publication. sullivan, a. (2002). ‘bourdieu and education: how useful is bourdieu’s theory for researchers?’ the netherlands' journal of social sciences, 38(2), 144-166. taylor, s. j. and bogdan, r. (1984). introduction to qualitative research methods: the search for meanings. new york: wiley. tillemma, h. h., orland barak, l. and mena marcos, j.j. (2008). ‘articulating choice and deliberation in conducting research – researchers ‘working in the interpretive zone’’. ethnography and education, 3(1), 4962. watson, v. (2012). learning to liberate: community-based solutions to the crisis in urban education. oxon: routledge. wilkinson, j. (2003). ‘working at the chalk face’ in: moorwood, j. ed. the teaching of classics. cambridge: cambridge university press. ch13. http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/filedownloading/?file=documents/surveys-and-good-practice/p/promoting%20and%20evaluating%20pupils'%20spiritual,%20moral,%20social%20and%20cultural%20development%20(pdf%20format).pdf&refer=1 http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/filedownloading/?file=documents/surveys-and-good-practice/p/promoting%20and%20evaluating%20pupils'%20spiritual,%20moral,%20social%20and%20cultural%20development%20(pdf%20format).pdf&refer=1 http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/filedownloading/?file=documents/surveys-and-good-practice/p/promoting%20and%20evaluating%20pupils'%20spiritual,%20moral,%20social%20and%20cultural%20development%20(pdf%20format).pdf&refer=1 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673926.001.0001/acprof-9780199673926-chapter-11 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673926.001.0001/acprof-9780199673926-chapter-11 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-017-9580-5 http://classonline.org.uk/docs/2012_diane_reay_-_a_socially_just_education_system.pdf http://classonline.org.uk/docs/2012_diane_reay_-_a_socially_just_education_system.pdf prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 64 appendix attendance at sessions pupil premium? higher attainer? classical qi gods charades (lunch time session) oracles apuleius (lunch time session) museum trip who wants to be a millionaire guess the god (lunch time session) myths homer's iliad (lunch time session) art gallery trip university of manchester talk (visitor) which god are you? (lunch time session) homer's odyssey laocoon roman numerals (lunch time session) herakles cambridge trip troy sappho (actor visited at lunch) alexander the great total pseudonym pp ha n ick x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 19 b en x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 18 h annah x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 16 n icole x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 16 n atalie x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 15 p aula x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 15 b eth x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 14 n iam h x x x x x x x x x x x x x 13 p olly x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 13 h arry x x x x x x x x x x x 10 n aom i x x x x x x x x x x 10 p hil x x x x 3 p eter x x x 2 p enny x x x 2 prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401215 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401215 56 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 a scoping review and thematic analysis of mentoring models that include leadership and school connectedness theories anita suleman1 philemon chigeza2 jo mensinga3 1 college of arts, society and education, james cook university, cairns, australia (anita.suleman@jcu.edu.au) 2 college of arts, society and education, james cook university, cairns, australia (philemon.chigeza@jcu.edu.au) 3 college of arts, society and education, james cook university, cairns, australia (jo.mensinga@jcu.edu.au) received: 23/03/2021 accepted for publication: 14/06/2021 published: 06/11/2021 abstract little is known about mentoring programs that focus on peer to peer mentoring as a leadership program or peer and school connectedness within australia in the last ten years. in fact, according to nora and crisp (2016), ‘research in the last 15 years on assessing mentoring programs was mainly focused on the academic success of students’ (p. 339). given the limited reviews addressing the leadership and school connectedness factors in australia, the objective was to understand the scope of published literature, identify evidence gaps and suggest future research needs. this scoping review searched within five electronic databases, in which only studies reported in english during the period 2010-2020 and published on mentoring, leadership and connectedness were selected. studies were coded using thematic analysis. included studies (n=25) were multi-clustered into five themes: peer support and peer relationships (68%), school connectedness (52%), wellbeing (48%), transition (40%), and leadership (20%). most studies (64%) were conducted in private or independent schools within australia, and 65% were qualitative. future research efforts should focus on the interrelationship of peer to peer mentoring, leadership or school and peer connectedness. additional studies within all school sectors would help low socio-economic areas, including vulnerable children, indigenous populations, and regional areas. keywords: mentoring, peer to peer, leadership, school connectedness, high school 1. introduction currently, there is little known about peer to peer mentoring programs within australia in the last ten years that relate to peer mentoring, leadership or peer and school connectedness. increasingly, schools are being called upon to enhance their students' wellbeing through mentoring. however, some north queensland schools call for programs and protocols to allow their students to experience and develop these skills to help them feel connected to their https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401215 https://doi.org/10.24377/xxxxx.xxxx.xxxxxxx https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:anita.suleman@jcu.edu.au mailto:philemon.chigeza@jcu.edu.au mailto:jo.mensinga@jcu.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0564-8813 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9964-0988 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7935-5343 prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 57 4(1) school and peers. in fact, according to nora and crisp (2016, p. 339), ‘research in the last 15 years on assessing mentoring programs was mainly focused on the academic success of students’. nora and crisp further suggest that these peer to peer mentoring or peer mentoring programs aim to enhance students' sense of belonging, academic persistence and success, but focusing on the mentees experience only. however, the literature suggests that a peer to peer mentoring program can also grow and develop leadership skills for the mentors as well (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015; burton, 2012; coyne-foresi, 2018; willis, bland, manka, & craft, 2012). this scoping review and thematic analysis looked at different forms and models of mentoring programs: (1) cross-age and peer to peer mentoring, (2) transition programs, (3) youth mentoring, and (4) cross-age peer teaching. the fundamental similarity in these different mentoring models is that mentors and mentees relationships remain consistent throughout the ages, sharing knowledge, skills and experience to assist others in progress. searches yielded a total of 2365 citations, of which 25 were included in this review. these citations clustered according to the five primary themes of peer support and peer relationships (68%), school connectedness (52%), well-being (48%), transition (40%), and leadership (20%). the proportion of included studies revolved around the 11-17 year age groups and australia's private school sector. methodologically, most of the studies used qualitative (65%), and the remaining 35% used quantitative or mixed methods. the history of mentoring dates back to ancient greece, where the word ‘mentor originates with the story of odysseus and his son telemachus’ (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015, p. 18; grassinger, porath, & ziegler, 2010). when odysseus fought in the trojan war, he entrusted his friend mentor with educating his son. mentor was a ‘teacher, friend, counsellor, protector’ and "father-figure" (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015, p. 18; grassinger et al., 2010, p. 28; sinclair & larson, 2018, p. 3). since that time, mentoring relationships have helped individuals navigate life's obstacles. it can be argued that mentoring and mentors' role in schools today are no different from the role mentor played for telemachus. contemporary research suggests that peer mentors' benefits outweigh the negatives when it comes to in-school mentoring (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015; chambers & coffey, 2019). some of the favoured peer mentoring aspects that enhance students' growth include ‘academic connectedness, self-esteem, responsibility, leadership and hopefulness’ (karcher, 2014, p. 2). karcher further suggests that these benefits can counter some of the potential negative aspects of bullying, lack of connectedness to peers or school, and a negative selfimage. these negative aspects, if not addressed, can be detrimental to any student's social and academic growth. the following section will look at the different mentoring models analysed in this review; cross-age and peer to peer mentoring, transition programs, youth mentoring, and cross-age peer teaching. 2. cross-age and peer to peer mentoring both cross-age mentoring and peer to peer mentoring recommend that an older student (mentor) be paired with a younger one (mentee). the many advantages attributed to these models include regularly scheduled meetings, the development of learning skills and the possibility of developing a "sibling type relationship" (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015, p. 19; karcher, 2014). however, the most impactful outcome is the age gap between the mentor and mentee (karcher, 2014). this is so because, although the age difference is enough for the mentee to perceive the mentor as knowledgeable, it is small enough for them to interact as peers. willis, bland, manka & craft (2012, p. 173) believe that ‘cross-age mentoring is an educational model that builds on peer support and mentoring to enhance their social relationships, develop cognitive skills and promote positive identity development’. similarly, gonsoulin, robin and candace (2006); karcher, davidson, rhodes and herrera (2010); karcher (2014) and manning (2005) suggest a minimum difference of two years between mentor and mentee is essential to enhance the friendly relationship. however, this can also be considered problematic because the goal and outcome of mentoring are a ‘working relationship’ and not a ‘friendly relationship’. karcher (2014, p. 2) suggests that the ‘working relationship, conducted in schools predates the more prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 58 4(1) formally known "school-based mentoring" or youth mentoring where adults come into the school’ (p. 2). this formal aspect of mentoring assumes the responsibility of the mentor for the mentee's learning and development. however, it can be argued that peer mentoring can be varied and informal to suit the school's needs at different times. these variants could be for academic or connectedness purposes by helping to lift the results of mentee students involved, or they could be used to have older students connecting with the younger, more vulnerable students. this approach ensures they are no students left behind academically or emotionally. this informal mentoring style is closely aligned with the transition program, which adapts to the new students’ need in a school. 3. transition programs the primary to secondary school transition for most students requires a strong social and educational support system. however, there are currently ‘few evidence-based, system-wide strategies to support students in the transition’ (evans-whipp, mundy, canterford, & patton, 2018, p. 1). the physical and social changes in children in their middle school years can have implications for their education and learning, such as the development phase during the middle school years. at this stage of development, the brain is adaptable and sensitive to social and educational influences; therefore, optimising well-being, academic and social competence can lead to improved learning. this means that transition programs such as mentoring, including school and peer connectedness, can be a foundation for learning, growth and social development throughout their remaining schooling years and beyond. the universal design for learning (u.d.l.) provides a useful basis for developing transition programmes that address all participants’ needs. this program is based on three principles: multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression; which, if applied to programs, can benefit students who struggle to adapt to the new content and school environment (chambers & coffey, 2019, p. 29). the mentors influence the mentees to engage in their learning and content. mentees’ understanding of the information can vary; therefore, mentors’ many means of representation can lift mentee students' capabilities. physical activities, such as role-playing can be utilised to open communication with peers and mentees in these mentoring programs. this transition program can have many benefits to all involved, including the learning of leadership skills. another study drew data from the supportive schools project, measuring the ‘impact of a wholeschool intervention, including curriculum, on western australian students’ experiences of bullying’ (waters, lester, & cross, 2014, p. 156). children's socioemotional well-being influences how well they manage the move to secondary school. for example, west, sweeting, & young (2010) found that children with lower self-esteem and high anxiety levels often experience difficulties during the transition to secondary school. at the same time, other studies have found that children with "behaviour difficulties" in primary school are more likely to struggle with the transition to secondary school (bailey & baines, 2012, p. 48). students in this project transitioned from primary school at the end of grade 7 and commenced secondary school in grade 8. the studies highlight that a peer-to-peer mentoring program could provide these vulnerable students with skills to combat bullying, which may occur, and help them feel connected to their school and peers by regularly meeting with older mentors. 4. youth mentoring youth mentoring is characterised as an individualised supportive relationship between a young person and a non-parental adult (dubois & karcher, 2014, p. 2; lakind, eddy, & zell, 2014; pryce, 2012; pryce & keller, 2011). youth mentor programs are run mainly by volunteers; however, there are some programs of ‘professional’ paid mentors, such as the friends of the children (f.o.t.c.) program (lakind, eddy, & zell, 2014). literature suggests that there are limitations to recruiting and maintaining professional mentors, and the ‘student need far exceeds the supply’ (lakind et al., 2014, p. 706). programs like f.o.t.c. can be seen as a social intervention to fix the lives of disadvantaged youth (pryce, 2012). as an intervention, youth mentoring is prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 59 4(1) individualised and useful. however, bringing together an adult stranger ‘into the life of a child to form a trusting and supportive relationship, is not necessarily an easy proposition’ (pryce & keller, 2011, p. 99). they have different ‘social positions defined by age, race, class, and educational level’ and brings to the new relationship their personality, relationship history, goals, expectations, and social and emotional resources (pryce & keller, 2011, p. 99). these can include their own assumptions about academic progress, which would be a high adaption/goal for any mentoring program. the youth mentoring program f.o.t.c. guarantees that if the child lives in the ‘service area, they will have a f.o.t.c. mentor continuously involved in their lives for their 12 years of schooling’ (lakind et al., 2014, p. 710). this mentoring style is generally accessible to children who have been in trouble with the law or truant many times from school. the mentoring program supports the youth's development and guides them in an area relevant to academic, sport or arts program goals. however, the age or experience of the mentor is a significant factor in the outcomes of these programs. there can be significant issues that hinder success in this type of mentoring program. for example, those mentees with personal histories of mental health or abuse are not likely to have long-term mentoring relationships by not having a mentor’s consistency to support them (lakind et al., 2014). also, the difficulty of parental support and meeting with the youths regularly impedes the program's goals and progress by further igniting the need for peer mentors/teachers to have better access to support if attending regularly. 5. cross-age peer teaching the final model explored in the literature is crossage peer teaching. burton (2012, p. 45) researched the use of peer teaching as an approach to stimulate learning in schools. burton believed students teaching, tutoring, or academically mentoring each other can improve education in the classroom. extensive research studies focusing on the topic highlight that the mentoring approach enabled students’ intellectual, social and personal growth (cohen, sampson, & boud, 2001; goodlad & hirst, 1989; gordon, 2005; simmons, fuchs, fuchs, mathes, & hodge, 1995). the students interact with their younger peers to re-engage in their learning, increase their self-esteem and motivation and develop leadership skills beneficial for their future. it can be argued that this approach is a win-win for all students involved and ensures that peer teachers also acquire benefit for their education and learning. the majority of mentoring styles introduced in this scoping review have a form of peer teaching included. mentors are trained to teach concepts to their mentees, although this may not be formally conveyed to them as peer teaching. therefore, the training could be different for each school, depending on the type of mentoring program/goal they are implementing. if the goals were curriculum-based, the mentors would need to train before teaching so they know the material ahead of time. however, students may already have top grades in these areas, so that this training may be seen as a refresher. if the mentors were teaching organisational type practices, they might have been chosen based on their behaviour and organisational practices already displayed. they may have high skill levels in these areas before their peer teaching and may not need formal training. whatever the type of training is implemented, the mentors would have a knowledge base already, which is why they are chosen to peer teach. 6. methods scoping reviews are used to determine the value in undertaking studies by identifying important evidence gaps (arksey & o'malley, 2005). this method was used to summarise and disseminate research findings while discovering research gaps in the literature. the arksey and o'malley (2005) framework was used, which identifies five stages for scoping literature. stage 1: identify the research question helps to define parameters and adopt particular positions at the outset. stage 2: identify the relevant studies from electronic sources to answer the central question. stage 3: study selection which indicated irrelevant papers for this project. stage 4: charting the data in remaining studies for relevance to answering the central question. stage 5: collating, prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 60 4(1) summarising and reporting the results found in table 1 (arksey & o'malley, 2005).1 for this review, five electronic databases (informit a+ education, informit aed, proquest, eric (education resources information seminar) and scopus) were searched with the date range 01/01/2010 to 31/12/2020. search terms included “peer and mentor”, “peer mentor”, “peer to peer mentor”, “student peer”, “student mentor”, “junior high school”, “junior high”, “secondary school”, “australia”, “north queensland”, “expectation”, “benefit” and “aid transition”. restrictions were initially applied with respect to language and geographical location, such as english and australia only. after moving duplicates and mapping recurrent themes, further excluding books, book chapters, book reviews, not english only, not australian research only, not theme focused, not peer-reviewed, and not education-themed only was needed. newly added filters such as scholarly journals (not secondary school teachers and interviews and stem education and at-risk students), high schools not postsecondary education and geographical locations such as new zealand, the united kingdom, canada, and the united states of america were included within the search parameters (see figure 1). further reviewing of titles and abstracts revealed further exclusions and recurring themes, leaving a review of 25 included citations. 1 see page 8 below prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 61 4(1) n = 2365 sources identified n = 2331 sources excluded with reasons (books, book chapters, book reviews, not english only, not australian research only, not theme focused, not peer-reviewed, and not education-themed only). n = 9 sources excluded with reasons – topic was not relevant to the scoping review perameters n = 25 articles read n = 5 major themes identified figure 1 study selection flowchart identify scoping review aim conduct scoping review using search terms read abstracts of identifed articles (n=2365) and exclude irrelevent articles read full identified articles (n=34) and further excluded irrelevant articles read full articles (n=25) and identify major themes synthesise and consolidate main literature themes prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 62 4(1) a preliminary reading of these 25 studies developed an initial thematic framework based on the primary outcomes reported. each study was assigned to a theme within this framework; however, as coding progressed, new themes emerged and previous studies were reassessed within the updated framework. with this final framework, primary themes were assigned to each study or were assigned secondary themes. the results of the studies were grouped according to the primary themes (see table 1 – below). each study was also categorised by location, methodology and participants age groups. this scoping review did not involve research with human subjects and did not warrant institutional ethical approval. 7. results searches yielded a total of 2365 citations, of which 25 were included in this review. these citations clustered according to the five primary themes of peer support and peer relationships (68%), school connectedness (52%), well-being (48%), transition (40%), and leadership (20%). the proportion of included studies revolved around the 11-17 year age groups and australia's private school sector. methodologically, most of the studies used qualitative (65%), and the remaining 35% used quantitative or mixed methods. prism (2021) suleman, chigeza and mensinga (2021) table 1 summary of included studies 1st author year of publication location/s methodology participants age or grades themes leadership connectedness transition well-being peer support and peer relationships alf lizzio 2011 queensland qualitative grade 11 students (average age 16.6 years) x x x anne coffey 2015 western australia mixed grades 7 x x x anne graham 2016 new south wales, victoria and queensland qualitative grades 1-2, 5-6, 8 and 11 x x brigit maguire 2015 australia wide qualitative grades 7 and 8 x x x bruce burton 2012 australia mixed grades 10 and 11 x x x davielle lakind 2014 new york city, united states of america qualitative between 5 and 17 years old x x dianne chambers 2019 western australia 11-12 years old x tracy evans-whipp 2018 melbourne, victoria mixed in 2012, year 3: 8-9 years of age and in 2016, year 7: 12-13 years of age x x x x eric sinclair 2018 united states of america qualitative grades 11 and 12 x helen st clairthompson 2016 united kingdom qualitative 11-16 years x x jill m aldridge 2015 perth, western australia qualitative 12 to 17 years old x x x justin c. perry 2019 united states of america qualitative grades 9-12 14-18 years old x x kevin d. besnoy 2015 united states of america six high school mentors and 11 mentees x leanne lester 2012 western australia qualitative 11-14 years old x x x leanne lester 2013 western australia qualitative 11-14 years old x x mariko carlisle 2011 united states of america quantitative grades 6, 7, and 8 x x prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 64 4(1) melissa coyne-foresi 2018 canada qualitative 7-9 years old and 12-14 years old x x paul willis 2012 australia qualitative grades 7 and 10 x x x x rosalind murrayharvey 2010 south australia qualitative grades 5-9 x x stacey k waters 2014 perth, western australia mixed 12–13 years old x stacey k. waters 2012 western australia qualitative 12-13 years old x x x x suzanne bailey 2012 united kingdom mixed grades 6 and 7 x julia pryce 2011 united states of america mixed grades 3-5 x x x julia pryce 2012 united states of america qualitative grades 3-5 x patrick west 2010 united kingdom qualitative 11, 13, 15 years old x x prism (2021) suleman, chigeza and mensinga (2021) 8. peer support and peer relationships studies were assigned to the ‘peer support and peer relationships’ theme if they focused primarily on the social/behavioural aspect or social/emotional impact on students during the studies. there is evidence of established friend dependence on peers for social support comes with increasing pressures when moving into secondary school. the student's social and emotional changes can manifest into frustration, anxiety, harmful and disruptive social behaviours (lester, cross, dooley, & shaw, 2013). one can argue that students who demonstrate these behaviours may not have positive relationships with peers and educators in the school community. this means that building a positive school connectedness can negatively impact a student's personal relations with others (carlisle, 2011). there is also evidence that peers are influenced daily by each other’s behaviours in school, and peer support is vital to young people’s motivation (lizzio, dempster, & neumann, 2011). therefore, peer support programmes and feedback can also support effective communication and introduce coping strategies for students to self-regulate and give them opportunities to express thoughts and feelings and reflect on experiences. peer support programs can adapt differently to other mentoring style programs. for example, coffey, berlach and o'neill (2015) used year 11 students to join small groups of year seven students for an allocated lesson each week. the program was adopted to foster peer relationships and to teach various organisational aspects of the school, including managing lockers and equipment. other schools in the study used year 12 students to participate in activities with the year seven students on induction day, while another used year ten students for their peer support program similar to the year 11 student approach. these studies show that the first few weeks were difficult because of mixed anxiety levels among most of the year seven starters. however, the support provided by their peers included ‘emotional, instrumental and informational support’ and also from the peer support leaders became a valuable source of support for the new student (chambers & coffey, 2019, p. 36; evans-whipp et al., 2018, p. 31). these outcomes were very similar across all the schools involved. 9. school connectedness the discourse of school connectedness is often considered very important within education. consistent evidence indicates that school connectedness correlates with a definite sense of well-being. graham, powell and truscott (2016, p. 368) suggest that ‘half of all secondary school students have a challenged sense of school connectedness’. they argue that this is due largely to the lack of harmony between students and educators, leading to student disengagement and tension in relationships with teachers, reinforcing a lack of connectedness and negatively impacting well-being. carlisle (2011, p. 19) implemented a ‘strategy to increase positive attributes for mentors such as problem-solving, cooperation and service-learning’. the students contributed to ‘team-building activities, community service learning projects, participated in a mentoring program on healthy relationships and conflict resolution and journaled their reflections of these activities’ (carlisle, 2011, p. 19). there was evidence of an increased sense of belonging and wellbeing among the students. this positive sense of belonging and impact on well-being was attributed to improved peer relationships and a sense of connectedness and community within the school. perry and lavins-merillat (2019) believe belonging to a group makes one feel accepted, cared for, and supported, which he calls school belongingness. developing a positive relationship with other adolescents, friends, teachers, and other students give a young student a sense of connectedness/belongingness to their school community and peers, contributing to a confident school career. moreover, many adolescents may be turning away from their parents as primary role models and shaping their own identity; the teacherstudent relationship can be a vital source of support for these growing students. there was evidence that was developing empathy, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and the quality of relationships all help to create a powerful sense of belonging, and because of this, students can prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 66 4(1) contribute to an encouraging school community (carlisle, 2011; lizzio et al., 2011; perry & lavinsmerillat, 2019). the students’ sense of attachment to their school is essential, and ‘participation in extracurricular activities is associated with higher school connectedness, enhanced school engagement and to be protective against students' dropping out’ (lizzio et al., 2011, p. 89). therefore, improved connectedness to a school for the newly transitioned students can result in higher school community engagement with peers and their curriculum. 10. well-being the well-being theme was evidenced in 48% of the articles reviewed and is a significant contributor to research involving mentoring where students needed or received further assistance other than just a peer mentor. in most cases, the students may have had underlying mental health issues, which became a concern during the running of the mentoring program. this also included already at-risk students or those who may have had low self-esteem or sought advice from other stakeholders in their school or community (perry & lavins-merillat, 2019). however, there was evidence that the meaning of well-being is still a term not well understood in the general community. well-being can also be related to the adaption of resilience to situations faced by students because of strong ties to family, school and peers. the ‘link between school connectedness and relationships is further evidenced in children's conceptualisations of their well-being at school, which emphasises the importance of social relations and activities over their educational experiences’ (graham et al., 2016, p. 368). therefore, student mentors can be more accessible to younger mentees and have the potential for positive influence and well-being (coyne-foresi, 2018). one study states, the ‘growing body of research indicates how the well-being of children influences both economic and emotional well-being in later life’ (aldridge, fraser, fozdar, ala'i, earnest, & afari, 2015, p. 6). this means the 15,000 hours children spend during their education, ongoing growth of well-being issues need to be addressed at a school level. the inclusion of peer and school connected concepts into a mentoring program can help develop students' well-being and positively connect their feeling of connection to their peers and school. the promotion of well-being in mentoring programs within schools could provide an environment for students to achieve and target the development of their well-being and feeling of safety (murray-harvey & slee, 2010). moreover, the outcomes of any mentoring program could have well-being as a priority to its goals. a student who is coping academically throughout their early years of secondary school can be seen as an indicator of their positive well-being. however, socially they may not be coping, and mentoring programs could assure students have peers to rely on if needed for the social aspect as well. this not only lifts a student's academic well-being but could support the lifting of the emotional/social aspect as well. 11. transition transition as a theme was included as it was prominent throughout the thematic analysis. about 40% of the articles analysed mentioned or included statistics of transition within them. transition was defined by authors as the process when students move from a ‘familiar environment, taught by one teacher and in the same classroom with the same group of peers, to the secondary school environment that is usually larger; unfamiliar; and more diverse’ (coffey et al., 2015, p. 2). compounded by this, the transition to secondary school may further affect adolescents’ well-being and academic engagement (waters et al., 2014, p. 154). some studies have identified a poor transition experience and emotional problems because of feelings of depression, anxiety, lack of well-being and general psychological distress (maguire & yu, 2015; waters, lester, wenden, & cross, 2012, pp. 190-192). the onset of puberty can also be a difficult period for young people to negotiate during this time, and poorer social health outcomes such as feelings of disengagement from school and negative peer relationships have been linked with a more inadequate transition. for some students, the transition from primary to secondary school can be straightforward; for others, this move can be prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 67 4(1) challenging. students who experience persistent difficulties across the first year of secondary school are ‘therefore likely to represent a vulnerable group who may be struggling to meet the demands of secondary school’ throughout their whole school career (evans-whipp et al., 2018, p. 42; st clairthompson, giles, mcgeown, putwain, clough, & perry, 2016). the transition can be the most challenging stage in a student's educational career and seen as a rite of passage (west et al., 2010, p. 21). not only are they learning the school's structure and dynamics quickly, but they also may not be with their close peers. the relationships with their close peers might have kept them feeling safe and secure. these students may become victims of bullying because of the loss of friendships, feelings of isolation, lack of self-esteem and disruptions to their learning (lester, cross, shaw, & dooley, 2012). however, using mentors to create a protective factor over the transition period successfully reduces bullying and reduces the effects this bullying has on these students and could allow for connectedness to peers and school to improve over the following years and give the student's transition the success it needs. they could be successful students focusing on their schooling environment as positive and feel connected to the community by helping others transition to their school. 12. leadership any study assigned to the leadership theme discussed their program as benefitting the mentors in improving their leadership skills. programs like the crimson g.u.i.d.e. (going up in dreams and esteem), peer teaching, b.i.o.n.i.c. (believe it or not i care), and peer mentoring literacy program concentrated on the leadership aspect of their studies (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015; burton, 2012; sinclair & larson, 2018). this included all studies utilising mentoring style models and allowing the opportunity to develop leadership skills while developing community connectedness, re-engaging in their schooling, and contributing positively to aiding others younger than themselves. for example, the crimson g.u.i.d.e. program used the "cross-age mentoring model", pairing gifted high school students with struggling younger school students in an afterschool mentoring program (besnoy & mcdaniel, 2015, p. 19). they believe that educators must encourage leadership abilities by providing authentic experiences outside the traditional school curriculum. whereas, lizzio and colleagues (2011) believe formal position-based student leadership such as school/sports captain can only engage a minority of students, informal leadership activities such as mentoring can offer the potential for much broader student engagement. therefore, mentoring programs that provide high school students with an opportunity to develop leadership skills and a commitment to the community are necessary for future success. using peer teaching as a leadership role, another study recruited students whose schools regarded having behavioural problems (burton, 2012). these students showed transformational changes as a result of being peer teachers. not only do these experiences steer them towards positive leadership roles, but they re-engaged them in their own learning (burton, 2012, p. 4). sinclair and larson (2018) highlight that the b.i.o.n.i.c. program contributed positively to the school culture by aiding young people in need and, of course, developing positive leadership qualities in their older mentors. the mentors selected by their teachers were allocated four to five students to mentor through their transition to secondary school (sinclair & larson, 2018). the majority of peer teachers and mentors in these programs felt a sense of pride in taking part in such a beneficial program for their younger peers and saw the benefit for their own future. willis and colleagues (2012, p. 176) selected mentors through a recruitment process in which senior year ten students were "invited to apply for this role as one of several leadership positions across the school". the peer mentoring literacy program's implementation helped the mentors develop leadership skills and enhanced the younger year seven students with literacy and numeracy skills. the mentor role extended beyond the classroom, and the mentors had a broader capacity in the school by assisting with student leadership events such as an official launch of the program. the mentors’ participation brought positive changes on an ‘interpersonal level by feeling more confident about themselves, about meeting and interacting with prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 68 4(1) younger students, about helping others, and about taking on a leadership role’ by "tapping into the leadership potential of youth mentors and the value in exploring an alternative learning approach to social skill development" (coyne-foresi, 2018; willis et al., 2012, p. 177). being a mentee and having a dedicated mentor for support help the mentee grow academically and socially while growing the mentors' skills towards leadership. 13. discussion by reviewing the 25 included citations and assigning them to the five thematic themes, this scoping review identified gaps in the school and peer connectedness of young students (mentees) and leadership goals for the older students (mentors). designing studies that will contribute to further evidence in these areas should inform future research. connectedness (52%) and peer support/relationships (68%) were explored as vital areas that could easily be included within most studies. moreover, these were seen as areas of importance to any project, including mentoring. if students are transitioning to a new school, these areas could be studied easily with the newly enrolled students to get a sense of how they have or have not connected to peers and the school community and why this is so. school or peer-only connectedness areas are areas of great concern and could be easily implemented into future studies within any transition or mentoring program. leadership challenges arose within the mentoring area where limited projects (20%) saw the mentors as leaders who could improve their skills while helping those younger than them. the main challenge is ensuring that suitable training has been conducted before the commencement or during the project and analysing for effectiveness towards potential leadership skills. all the projects, which included training, were conducted in the students own time (usually after school or during lunch breaks) and may not have been seen as highly relevant to the mentors' future life skills. there was no mention of promoting these skills for the student's future. these areas included goal setting, establishing and maintaining boundaries, problem-solving, listening and communication skills. most of the studies did not use the opportunity to evaluate their training and how it benefitted the students (mentors) or whether it impacted their leadership knowledge and skills for the future. these research opportunities were either missed initially or mentioned for future evaluation. there were strengths and limitations to this review. strengths included a thorough database search and broad inclusion criteria: this identified evidence gaps and possible future research opportunities needed in mentoring in the 2020s. limitations included the omission of grey literature resulting in inherent limitations providing breadth rather than depth of information within this topic. the limitation of only including studies disseminated in english only made generalisable articles about mentoring written in english. further research in areas of other cultures or languages would benefit this review. 14. conclusion schools are being called upon to enhance students’ well-being, including using mentoring programs. this review's overall goal was to summarise and disseminate research findings while discovering research gaps in the literature on mentorship in secondary schools, mentoring as transition programs, and the inclusion of leadership role opportunities. the study found that methodologically, 65% of the studies used qualitative methods, and the remaining 35% used quantitative or mixed methods. the study calls for more quantitative and mixed methods research and evaluations of students’ experiences on mentoring programs. in summary, the findings indicated a need for future research exploring mentoring programs that include the effects of peer and school connectedness for the younger students and leadership skills for the older participants. more extensive studies of mentoring programs in more schools (independent, private and public school systems from various socioeconomic areas) could also be conducted to validate the data collected and for a thorough look at these issues. for example, is there a difference in support between education types (private or public) or socioeconomic areas where students are based? in australia, state by state analysis could also benefit local or state governments with decisions towards funding such projects. moreover, further analysis in prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 69 4(1) areas of regional/city/suburban/school catchments for similar or practical support for transitioning students and peer or school connectedness can benefit education systems australia wide. 15. disclosure statement the author (s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 16. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) suleman, chigeza & mensinga (2022) prism 70 4(1) 17. references aldridge, j. m., fraser, b. j., fozdar, f., ala'i, k., earnest, j., & afari, e. 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(2015). transition to secondary school. in the longitudinal study of australian children annual statistical report 2014 (pp. 83-104). australian institute of family studies. https://growingupinaustralia.gov.au/researchfindings/annual-statistical-reports manning, s. (2005). young leaders: growing through mentoring. gifted child today, 28(1), 14-20. https://doi.org/10.4219/gct-2005-163 murray-harvey, r., & slee, p. t. (2010, jun). school and home relationships and their impact on school bullying. school psychology international, 31(3), 271295. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034310366206 nora, a., & crisp, g. (2016). mentoring students: conceptualising and validating the multi-dimensions of a support system. journal of college student retention: research, theory & practice, 9(3), 337-356. https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.9.3.e perry, j. c., & lavins-merillat, b. d. 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(2018). striving for contribution: the five cs and positive effects of crossage peer mentoring. pastoral care in education, 36(1), 3-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2017.1422008 st clair-thompson, h., giles, r., mcgeown, s. p., putwain, d., clough, p., & perry, j. (2016). mental toughness and transitions to high school and to undergraduate study. educational psychology, 37(7), 792-809. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2016.1184746 waters, s. k., lester, l., & cross, d. (2014, aug). transition to secondary school: expectation versus experience. australian journal of education, 58(2), 153-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944114523371 waters, s. k., lester, l., wenden, e., & cross, d. (2012, dec). a theoretically grounded exploration of the social and emotional outcomes of transition to secondary school. australian journal of guidance and counselling, 22(2), 190-205. https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2012.26 west, p., sweeting, h., & young, r. (2010). transition matters: pupils' experiences of the primary-secondary school transition in the west of scotland and consequences for well-being and attainment. research papers in education, 25(1), 21-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520802308677 willis, p., bland, r., manka, l., & craft, c. (2012). the abc of peer mentoring – what secondary students have to say about cross-age peer mentoring in a regional australian school. educational research and evaluation, 18(2), 173-185. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2011.650920 https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2010.482674 https://growingupinaustralia.gov.au/research-findings/annual-statistical-reports https://growingupinaustralia.gov.au/research-findings/annual-statistical-reports https://doi.org/10.4219%2fgct-2005-163 https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034310366206 https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.9.3.e https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759x19826575 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-012-0260-6 https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x11409068 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1001654 https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2017.1422008 https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2016.1184746 https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944114523371 https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2012.26 https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520802308677 https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2011.650920 prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302204 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302204 48 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 talking tolerance: being deliberative about fundamental british values lee jerome,1 anna liddle,2 helen young3 1department of education, middlesex university, london, uk (l.jerome@mdx.ac.uk) 2school of media and communication, university of leeds, leeds, uk (a.s.liddle@leeds.ac.uk) 3school of law & social sciences, london south bank university, london, uk (youngh@lsbu.ac.uk) received: 14.11.2020 accepted for publication: 08.06.2021 published: 15/06/2021 abstract this article reconsiders the literature on civic nationalism and argues that, rather than representing an alternative to ethno-cultural nationalism, it is more accurate to think of the two terms at either end of a continuum. whilst the fundamental british values (fbvs) are often interpreted through a cultural discourse, which serves to alienate and marginalise minoritised students and staff, this article demonstrates how teaching can avoid this framing and engage students with a civic discourse. transcripts from secondary students’ conversations about religious freedom illustrate that they are capable of balancing rights sensitively, of reaching pragmatic solutions and demonstrating sympathy for others. this demonstrates that the fbvs may create opportunities for developing an ethics of care within a deliberative democratic project. keywords: citizenship education, deliberation, ethics of care, fundamental british values, nationalism, teaching 1. nationalism, identity and values michael ignatieff’s book blood and belonging (1994) brought discussion of the nature and significance of nationalism back into public debate towards the end of the twentieth century. whilst he was clear that his own identity was global and cosmopolitan, he argued that, because the nation state functioned as the only effective guarantor of security and a rights-based legal system (at least for most people in the world), it was essential to nurture the idea of the nation. his view was borne of a grudging acceptance of necessity, rather than some urge to stir up a celebratory or patriotic nationalism. in order to clarify this position he advocated a distinction between an ethno-cultural form of nationalism and a civic nationalism. ethno-cultural nationalism represents a form of blood and soil identity, which creates some mythic racial or cultural traits, and seeks to elevate them to superiority and protect them from outside threats (whether that be in the form of https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ file:///c:/users/leepj/appdata/local/temp/l.jerome@mdx.ac.uk mailto:a.s.liddle@leeds.ac.uk mailto:youngh@lsbu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-6986 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7491-9771 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6021-3513 prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 49 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) immigration, international rivalry, miscegenation etc.). such forms of nationalist sentiment may well serve to bind a people (at least some of them) to their nation, but it will achieve this through the exclusion (and oppression) of those who are deemed not to fit into this mythic race/nation. the nazi commitment to the aryan mythology serves as an archetypal example, but ignatieff was also concerned with more immediate problems, such as the deadly rise of ethno-cultural nationalism dissolving the former yugoslavia. by contrast, a civic nationalist discourse, at least the kind advocated by ignatieff, would be more inclusive, and committed to a set of rules and processes for living together. civic nationalism holds out the promise that a population can be bound together through common interest and can develop some sense of shared nationalist sentiment so that core civic values can be sustained. if the nation state should be supported so that it can sustain a particular civic culture, then ignatieff is keen to offer a form of nationalism that is democratic, inclusive and compatible with democratic values. since ignatieff wrote that controversial book, much of the west (and beyond) has witnessed a resurgence in support for the far right, with ethno-cultural nationalism combined with anti-immigrant rhetoric, islamophobia, antisemitism, and attacks on lgbt+ rights, women’s rights, and academic freedom. ignatieff’s own institution, the central european university, has been forced to move from hungary to austria after the orban government introduced restrictions. faced with popular nationalist sentiment that can be stirred to such exclusivist and negative political ends, many on the centre left have seized on civic nationalism as a positive way to channel such emotional commitments to a positive form of nationalist identity (xenos, 1996). importantly, civic nationalism does not demand that national identity sits above other aspects of identity which may bind one to others within and outside of one’s society, through bonds of class, language, sex, religion etc. one aspect of the freedom guaranteed by democratic states is the right to prioritise one’s various identities, and so attempts to impose national identity as a superior identity within a democracy are contradictory (sen, 2006, p.38). but sen argues that this is all a question of balance because the opposite tendency, to be entirely indifferent to national identity, runs the risk that society will simply drift or fall apart, or in the worst cases, tear itself apart. sen quotes gandhi’s fear that a nation whose population does not perceive itself to share a national identity will be ‘vivisected and torn to pieces’ (quoted in sen, 2006, p.169). tamir (2019) argues that political theorists have evaded the topic by adopting the language of ‘community’ and ‘communitarianism’, but this ignores the fact that for many it is the nation that fulfils this function in practice. liberals often simply assume the political community is already in place, but: how a ‘people’ and political solidarity are created is often ignored and taken for granted even though it is nationhood that generates the ‘we’ and collective power. (kuzio, 2002, p.31) whilst ignatieff’s argument that we must engage with the phenomenon of nationalism, has attracted some pragmatic support, the idea that one can divide up nationalisms into these two broad categories has been subject to more sustained critique. several authors point out that ignatieff’s distinction is actually a continuation of an older thesis developed by kohn (1944) during the second world war to defend western liberal democratic nation states as being more developed compared to eastern states (kuzio, 2002; tamir, 2019; yack, 1996). but, these critiques do not dismantle the distinctions entirely, instead they argue that it might be better to treat them as two ends on a continuum, and to see every nation as occupying different positions on that continuum at different points in history. those western states that might be described as civic nationalist now, generally went through a period of forging a culturally and / or linguistically homogenous population. this involved a dual process of suppression and creation, where ethnocultural nationalist myths were generated and promoted. kuzio (2002) argues that these two types of nationalism are always present in different combinations and so the emergence of crises, threats or conflict can re-balance sentiment in the most settled nation from a form of civic universalism towards ethnic particularism. in addition, this more subtle analysis prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 50 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) reveals the obvious truth that the civic institutions, processes and relationships that prevail in each nation state are also situated within a specific territory and history, they therefore have a cultural dimension, which is often associated with an ethno-cultural identity. yack (1996) argues that ignatieff’s simplistic binary model represents a kind of wishful thinking which allows ignatieff to ignore the cultural baggage that comes with a belief in certain values and processes, i.e. being a canadian citizen brings a sense of cultural identity as well as a political affiliation. tamir (2019) extends this argument to contend that civic nationalism is essentially the illusion that one can have a form of nationalism without emphasising the nation. while constitutionalism, universal rights, and equal membership are valuable guidelines for political action, they offer far too thin a basis for social and political cooperation. this is why nationalism keeps coming back, pushing civic ideals aside, and making its way to centre stage (p. 433). whilst the authors cited so far root their arguments in historical analysis, fozdar and low (2015) take a different approach through listening to citizens’ talk about citizenship and immigration. they argue that, whatever the merits of the distinction between ethnocultural and civic nationalism, in practice the two are elided in everyday discourse. by analysing a number of focus groups in australia they argue that suspicion of migrants (especially muslims) is superficially concealed with the more acceptable language of civic nationalism. so, immigrants are seen as a concern because they may not follow ‘our laws’ rather than because of their language, religion or ethnicity. they argue this should not be a surprise as both forms of nationalism inevitably construct some ‘other’ against whom national identity is constructed. for ethno-cultural nationalists, the other is a person with a different ethnicity, language or cultural identity. for the civic nationalist, the other is simply someone who has not sought or achieved membership of the political community. immigration and citizenship policies serve as mechanisms for ‘civic integration’ but they also provide a set of criteria for people to use to measure the threat posed by immigrants who might not endorse specific values. barker (1981) called this ‘new racism’ as it moved beyond explicitly citing race as a reason for exclusion or suspicion, but it has a similar effect. we can see this in the rise of islamophobia in the far right in europe, who target ethnic minorities as illiberal and therefore as a threat to their civic national ideals (fozdar & low, 2015, p.529). on this view, emancipatory ethical and political values (those that would be defended by ignatieff) can be transformed, under certain conditions, into inherent personal attributes of members of particular national and regional collectivities (britain, the west) and, thus, in practice, become exclusionary rather than permeable signifiers of boundaries (yuval-davis, 2006, pp.212-13). in practice, this turns into dutch immigration officers ‘testing’ muslim’s tolerance of gay men as a form of homonationalism or of women’s rights as femonationalism (larin, 2020, p.134). the fear is of ‘cultural incompatibility’ (fozdar & low, 2015, p.539) and it can be seen across the new right, for example in orban’s appeal to christian and illiberal democracy in hungary, in pim fortuyn’s high-profile defence of dutch socially liberal values against ‘socially backward’ islam, and renaud camus’ fears about the ‘great replacement’ of indigenous french culture with an immigrant and islamic culture (haynes, 2020). parties on the far right have begun to couch their arguments in terms of the distinctive values that underpin society, rather than a unique ethnic character – even though their motivations remain the same. 2. the role of policy cannadine (2013) reminds us that most nation states, and therefore national identities, have actually been quite fluid over time. one might think this is less so for island states where borders are stable due to geography, but in the case of the uk, there are certainly shifting identities being negotiated between the various claims presented by england, scotland, wales, northern ireland, the uk, britain, and the british isles. for this reason, anderson’s (2006) account of nations as ‘imagined communities’ has proved influential where the nation is seen as a ‘cultural artefact’ (anderson, 2006, p.4) that comes into being for a variety of reasons and invokes a variety of emotional and ideological prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 51 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) connections. but as cultural artefacts, they are generated and sustained through cultural processes, and these frame the role of policy, most obviously immigration and citizenship policy, but also education, where government perceives the opportunity to promote a positive vision of national identity. in britain, this task of narrating a national identity was intimately bound up with the empire, for example, the colonial office created and circulated lantern-slide lectures and illustrated textbooks which represented the british to their empire, and the peoples of the empire to the british. such resources were promoted through school geography with the express intent that thinking geographically should become synonymous with thinking imperially (ryan, 1997, p.187). such artefacts led tomlinson (2019) to conclude that textbooks in britain were ‘largely places of myth-making and evasions of the truth’ so far as the empire was concerned (p. 3). in more recent times this was evident during new labour governments, as gordon brown and tony blair sought to harness some set of british values to their particular form of progressive politics. this included reforming the citizenship and history curriculum to ensure children were taught about their shared values and the national narrative that accounts for them (jerome & clemitshaw, 2012). it also included the development of community cohesion programmes, citizenship ceremonies for immigrants (see mcghee, 2008), and numerous reports such as lord goldsmith’s citizenship: our common bond, and the commission on integration and cohesion’s report, our shared future (wiredgov online, 2008). such developments accompanied a fear, akin to that expressed above by sen, that policy might be promoting a form of multiculturalism through which the nation was ‘sleepwalking to segregation’ (phillips quoted in mcghee, 2008, p.87). these developments laid the groundwork for the identification of a list of fundamental british values (fbvs), which emerged under the subsequent conservative / liberal democrat government, and which have been incorporated into the requirements for qualifying to teach (dfe, 2011); guidance on social, moral, spiritual and cultural (smsc) education (dfe, 2014); and the prevent duty (dfe, 2015), where ‘vocal opposition’ to the fbvs is taken as an indication of extremism (see jerome et al., 2019; revell and bryan, 2018). all teachers in england are required to uphold the government’s defined list of british values, all children must be taught them, and explicit rejection of them can result in referrals to police and/or local government. the fbvs are democracy, the rule of law, liberty and mutual respect and toleration (dfe, 2014). this list is remarkably similar to other lists of ‘national values’ drawn up by various countries in the west. but the literature on different forms of nationalisms (discussed above) alerts us to pay attention to the specific context in which those values are being defined and implemented. tolerance, for example, is a common principle to all liberal democracies, but looks rather different in france with its commitment to laicité, or england with its established church and public equality duty. similarly, the elision of the fbv policy with antiterrorism/extremism policy generates another set of contextual assumptions that shape their implementation (house of commons, 2015). on this view, the fbv policy can be seen within civic nationalist discourse, because even though they are universal liberal values they are framed as british. in addition, the defence of these values is also bound up with defending the nation against extremist threats (from those who do not support the fbvs). significantly, the fbvs are also promoted as a set of values to bind us together. 3. towards critical implementation of the fbvs given the potential for slippage between a civic and an ethno-cultural nationalist framing of the fbvs, it is significant that there is evidence that many schools are choosing to emphasise the teaching of british cultural identity, symbols and artefacts, rather than focusing on teaching about the core values that underpin british democratic politics. recent studies demonstrate that many teachers are promoting britishness, rather than the fbvs, with the result that muslim and other minoritised teachers and students often feel marginalised and under pressure, from the very policy that ostensibly seeks to promote a common bond (see prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 52 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) the edited collection in busher & jerome, 2020). practice in some schools therefore shifts the fbv policy along the scale towards ethno-cultural nationalism. but this is not inevitable, and in some schools the policy is implemented in a way that reinterprets the fbvs through the existing school ethos, or teachers adopt a more overtly critical approach to teaching them as principles of democratic citizenship (vincent, 2019). this article draws on a curriculum project in england which explicitly set out to promote teaching about the fbvs in the context of critical citizenship education, in order to avoid the tendency towards promoting ‘britishness’. such an approach seeks to promote understanding of the fbvs as political concepts and to enable students to engage with them critically, both theoretically and in relation to everyday politics (vincent, 2019). the deliberative classroom thus positions the fbv teaching towards the civic nationalist end of the continuum and away from the ethno-cultural pole. it includes a set of resources which aim to explore one or more of the fbvs. the resources promote deliberative discussion rather than competitive debates because deliberation is better suited to opening up discussion of complex issues through exploratory talk. but deliberative tasks also encourage students to seek a consensus, or at least to find a way forward that can meet the approval of as many classmates as possible. again, this contrasts with competitive debates, where a simple majority will win the day. deliberation is also pragmatic, in that the resolution to a deliberative dialogue only results in a compromise that works for the people who achieved it, at the time it was achieved. decisions are open to further deliberation, and one might well expect that with different evidence, different participants, and a changing context a similar process may well recommend a different solution. to this extent deliberation models the form of democratic vision espoused by dewey (1916), who promoted a commitment to pragmatic processes of living together. noddings and brooks echo this aspect of dewey’s position by arguing: conversation is imperative in a participatory democracy and it should be an essential part of every school day. a participatory democracy is not simply an arrangement of governing procedures; it is a mode of associated living that requires both critical thinking and moral commitment to its continual analysis and improvement. (noddings & brooks, 2017, p.152) by encouraging participants to attend to the views of others, and to understand the reasons they have for having those views, deliberation encourages empathy and mutual understanding. this also reflects some of the core ideas at the heart of nodding’s ‘ethics of care’, as she applies it to education, where ‘sympathy’ means being receptive and attentive to the other (noddings, 2002). in order to develop such sympathy, one needs to first care about the other, and then develop the capacity to care for them. and through the development of these reciprocal relations of regard for others and care, we develop deeper connections, which are often called social capital (smith, 2020). in relating this approach to the teaching of controversial issues in schools, noddings argues that: the care approach, as a relational ethic, recognizes the centrality of relations and works through these relations to make life better for all those involved. (noddings & brooks, 2017, p.16) this seems to chime with aspects of deliberative democracy, and certainly the deliberative classroom as we have interpreted it. in this project the solution to an ethical or political challenge is to be sought through an inclusive process of discussion, and should represent an inclusive answer to the problem. in the rest of this article, we consider the extent to which this approach enables students to engage with the fbvs as civic ideals in the specific context of britain without moving towards the ethno-cultural pole of nationalism. 4. methodology the data reported in this article was collected as part of a larger project: the deliberative classroom and the development of secondary students’ conceptual prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 53 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) understanding of democracy (jerome et al., 2020). in this article we have chosen to focus on one school, that we have given the pseudonym avon school. this school was different to the other three where data collection took place in that the data came from volunteers in the debating society, rather than from lessons. furthermore, the age-range in this school was broader, covering 12-18 years old whereas the other schools were in year group classes of 12–13-year-olds. due to the particular richness of this data in relation to the subject of the article, we felt that it warranted a more thorough exploration. avon school is an 11-18 church of england academy in the north of england with a mixed intake, including a sizeable muslim minority. the group was made up of 14 students aged 12-18 and three of the four tables in the room consented to having recorders on the table to capture small group discussions. the plenary at the end of the session was also recorded. the activity we used required students to engage in a deliberative discussion of a draft resolution about religious freedom in their school. they discussed this initially in small groups where they were encouraged to critically examine the text and make changes and prepare to table any amendments they wished to make. next, each group presented their ideas to the rest of the class and engaged in discussion on amendments. this session took place during a lunch time meeting of the debating society and was facilitated by two researchers with the assistance of the teacher who runs the club. the session generated three recordings from small group discussions and a recording of the plenary discussion in the second phase. each of these was transcribed, and two researchers applied an initial coding system to the transcriptions, which included coding individual utterances as well as longer chains of conversation. full details of the analysis of the total data set are reported in jerome et al. (2020) but for this article we were interested in the extent to which the students were able to explore the concepts, what issues were touched on in those exploratory discussions, and whether they slipped into relating them to ethnocultural identity. 5. discussion of data our analysis of this data demonstrates that the students were able to open up the issues to exploratory discussion with a degree of sympathy, as described by noddings. students adopted a pragmatic approach to the situated problem they were asked to consider, and were attentive to the various perspectives represented in the room. contrary to the evidence from fozdar & low (2015, discussed above) they did not make the connection to ethno-cultural norms, and focused more on the civic end of the continuum, looking for the best way to work through the challenges in their own school context. we present the data in three sections below: first in relation to the students’ discussion about offence, which brings to the fore questions of balancing different rights and interests; second to illustrate their commitment to a situated pragmatism; and third to discuss how the participants demonstrate respect for others. a. offence the draft resolution the students were debating included a number of clauses designed to stimulate discussion and encourage students to think about the different dimensions of religious freedom and toleration. the final statement to consider stated that the meeting, recommends that no-one should be allowed to offend others because of their religious beliefs, and that the definition of offence should be determined by the person who perceived the offence, not the person who spoke or acted in an offensive manner (association for citizenship teaching, 2020). this section illustrates how students responded to this stimulus and we were struck by the similarity between the points they raised and the introduction to winston’s (2012) book a right to offend, where he constructs a classic liberal defence of free speech as the right to offend. the students engage with the same arguments but resolve the tensions in a different way. first, some of the students considered whether it matters that someone might be offended by what prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 54 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) someone else said, which opens up the discussion about whether there is a right not to be offended that sits in tension with one’s right to free speech. speaker 1: you can’t implement it speaker 3: because it conflicts with freedom of speech [they talk over each other, disagreeing] speaker 4: no he’s kinda right because speaker 1: if you can’t disagree with someone you can’t move forwards speaker 3: obviously everyone knows that it is subjective what you are going to find offensive… speaker 1: if i am eating halal meat and some guy comes up and says “oh i don’t agree with this you are offending me that you are eating this,” who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong…? speaker 2: what do you mean? that’s disagreement though innit? it’s not… speaker 1: yeah, that’s what i’m saying speaker 2: that’s a stupid thing to be offended over speaker 3: stupid or not it’s still something to be offended over. but there’s the freedom to be offended over it this group of muslim boys touch on several aspects of the classic liberal debate laid out by winston (2012). in the final contribution, the use of the phrase ‘the freedom to be offended’ summarises winston’s interpretation succinctly, and the boys also link this to the inherent subjectivity of how one would reasonably use such criteria to restrict the freedom of speech. in another small group the students explore an alternative approach and start to consider things from the perspective of the person who caused offence. speaker 3: i think it depends on the intention behind what they said. if they said it to be offensive then speaker 1: but what if they said it to be funny? because that’s not like speaker 3: but even then speaker 2: they shouldn’t be joking about things like that this of course begs the question of how one could reasonably determine the intentions behind an act, which leads to the double problem that one has the subjective interpretations of the offender and the offended and no obvious way to resolve the situation. speaker 3: there should be like an objective test, not subjective speaker 1: i also think that it is quite big, no one should be allowed to offend but what happens if you do? what happens to you? like do you just get told off? speaker 3: and as well sometimes people get offended for no reason. that is joking [lots of talking over each other] speaker 1: especially if they genuinely didn’t mean it. instead of not being allowed to they should be educated… sometimes it is not malice, but just ignorance [others agree] so i think it is more important that they are just taught about the issues in this extract they start to consider how one might adjudicate in challenging situations but also move on to prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 55 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) consider what the consequences should be. this reflects a recognition that offence might not be something that should be punished, even though it is undesirable, and it reflects an emerging idea that most people probably would not want to cause offence to others, and so educating them about the way one’s comments might be heard and interpreted is probably the best response. when this discussion came up again in the whole class plenary, it is characterised in these two contributions: speaker 1: you were talking about something to do with opinions and if you don’t know if it is out of malice or not that’s also subjective, but it is also what you would say an opinion is because some are signs of oppression because you can’t just say “oh it wasn’t out of malice” or something like that as some people would agree it is a sign of oppression. speaker 2: so what i meant was like it’s the way you respond to the situation so obviously you can say that someone isn’t allowed to say something offensive but the question is when someone does, because it happens, what do you do with that situation? so i think it is you have to look at whether they said it because they wanted to be oppressive or malicious because in that case you should punish them or sanction them for it or if they said it because they genuinely did not know that it was wrong to say then you should educate them about why it’s wrong. this illustrates speaker 1’s quite sophisticated understanding from speaker 1 of how oppression operates though unconsciously held beliefs and prevailing norms, and so one needs to be attentive to the unintended effects of one’s acts. speaker 2 acknowledges this and argues that there must nevertheless be a distinction between types of motivation in order to make the appropriate response. this seems to reflect the kind of distinction seen in law, where intent and premeditation are relevant factors in judgement and sentencing. the discussion leads another student to observe: then it comes down to what’s more important – your right to say what you want or someone else’s right to feel comfortable in their own environment? what’s more important there? i think it is more important that people around you feel safe and comfortable and happy rather than you just being able to say whatever you want all the time. this comment reflects the classic liberal argument about offence and free speech but resolves it in a way a classic liberal theorist would not. winston argues that the notion of ‘offence’ has been used to widen the definition of ‘harm’ in order to restrict the right to freedom of speech, but these students do not want to put offence so readily to one side, partly because they recognise this is bound up with established patterns of oppression and injustice. to this extent, the discussion mirrors davies’s argument which concludes that schools should provide opportunities for understanding and discussing the nature of offence and when it is legitimate to be offended; this will require analysis of rights and of motives, whether using the right to free speech just for the sake of offending or to try to point out injustice or wrong (davies, 2008, p.149). in part the student’s answer is motivated by a pragmatic desire to strike a balance that recognises the importance of mutual respect in the context of their school, and in the next section we focus on this situated pragmatic reasoning. b. situated pragmatism we saw in the first section that students were willing to consider a pragmatic solution to the issues. one of the most obvious ways they pursued this was by considering whether a teacher could reasonably adjudicate between two people who disagreed about whether something had been offensive, and if so, what the intention was behind it and what outcome might be prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 56 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) reasonable. this was not a simplistic deferral to authority, indeed the students discussed this and noted that, although the teacher brought their own subjectivity to the situation, it was not incompatible with a democratic approach to ask a relatively uninvolved third party to resolve the issue. this demonstrates a principle that is eminently understandable in a school context, where teachers have powers of arbitration in disputes between students, but also recognises an aspect of the rule of law, where an independent third party can reasonably be called on to resolve disputes between citizens. another clause of the draft resolution the students discussed stated that: this meeting recommends that the school should ensure that all students and staff can pursue their own religion, including adapting uniforms and wearing religious symbols to reflect their beliefs; and attending religious meetings at appropriate times. this was designed to focus the students on how to enact religious freedom in their specific context, and in this example it is important to recall that the students attended a church of england school. a group of muslim boys raised the following points: speaker 2: …i think people should get to wear what they want according to their religion speaker 1: to what extent though. you can’t just come into school wearing a jilbab or something speaker 2: well obviously it’s a christian school innit speaker 3: that’s not necessarily something to do with their religious beliefs that’s something to do with the school ethos. like [other speaker: yeah] the way the school want to conduct themselves. you could quite easily have gone to another school that doesn’t have uniform with the same teaching standard but you chose to come to the school speaker 1: yeah you should abide by the rules that you chose there are several things happening here relevant to this theme. fozdar and low (2015) discuss the assertion that people should follow ‘our rules’ and ‘our ways of doing things’ as a way to deny the legitimacy of diversity and as cultural cover for what may be essentially racist assumptions and motivations. in this example, the boys are from a minority religion in the school and are engaging with what this means for them and other muslim students. but it makes sense to them that they have to fit in with the rules to some extent, because the school does have a religious ethos. church of england schools interpret the religious dimension to the ethos in different ways, but in other discussions it is evident that religion is quite an important aspect of life at avon school. in two groups they discuss the school visits to the local cathedral, where students are expected to participate in acts of worship. speaker 2: personally, i think that if you are going to the cathedral it doesn’t matter whatever faith you are so long as you go there you don’t have to take part in the prayers or the hymns you should just sit there and be respectful speaker 4: yeah, it shouldn’t be a sign of disrespect if they don’t go up for a blessing or communion [others: yeah] if they just want to sit there they’re not doing anything wrong. at least like they’ve come. speaker 2: as long as they aren’t like, you know, how some people make a big scene or whatever [others: yeah] and not really respecting it [speaker 3: yeah] here the conversation does come close to some of the exclusivist concerns noted by fozdar and low (2015) and there is some connection to discourses around ‘model minorities’ (bradbury, 2013) or the ‘good immigrant’ (shukla, 2016). these students have an expectation that students from a religious minority prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 57 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) should conform to ‘how we do things here’ and not speak out or rock the boat. this connects with arguments that promote immigrant / minority assimilation to the dominant culture, and therefore assumes that the culture is somehow a fixed phenomenon, often reflecting a fixed national identity. however, whilst this is one possible interpretation, it is also important to acknowledge that these students are situating this conversation within their own school context, and that institutional culture is undeniably christian. one might argue about how a christian school should engage with the faith of non-christian students, but the whole point of such schools is that they offer parents and young people an option where christian values become part of the shared life of the institution. to that extent, the question of how nonchristians manage those christian dimensions to school life is a real issue of negotiation and belonging. this could lead to a host of alternative arguments and approaches but one muslim student in another small group offers the following resolution: we sing but we don’t actually mean any of it but, we’re just singing to be respectful. again, one could offer an interpretation here that the student has succumbed to the institutional pressure to fit in and not rock the boat, but their pragmatic response is also redolent of vertovec’s (2007) account of how people manage to get along in very diverse contexts. he argues that we manage the tensions that arise through diverse cultural, religious and ethical beliefs by establishing a ‘veneer of civility’ through our everyday interactions. this might manifest itself in what sandercock (2003, p.89) calls ‘the daily habits of perhaps quite banal intercultural interaction’ for example small gestures, greetings, acknowledgements, even keeping a respectful distance from others. on this reading, the student may not be succumbing to pressure to deny their own identity, they may be offering a pragmatic solution to maintaining civility. this does not necessarily reflect an act of self-denial or oppression, rather as gilroy (2004) describes it, it could be seen as an act of ‘conviviality’ where we move away from a reified sense of identity and embrace mechanisms for identification. here the student is finding ways to positively identify as a muslim and a student who belongs to a christian school, with a mixed group of peers. c. sympathy and the other one of the principles of deliberative democracy is that participants must try to maintain a measure of open-mindedness. this means being willing to revise one’s view of what the best outcome might be, but it also means acknowledging others as legitimate actors, whose views should be listened to seriously, respected, and engaged with. one of the transformative effects of deliberative democracy is generated through this process of serious engagement. and this requires participants to demonstrate the quality of sympathy, as understood by noddings (2002), i.e. of being attentive to others and receptive to them and their views. this nurtures a commitment to care about others and their situation, as the prelude to undertaking actions that show caring for them. we can read the statement above in that light, so that ‘just singing to be respectful’ implies the student cares enough about those who value the christian rituals of the school to undertake action which allows them to continue uninterrupted. it may well appear problematic if all the examples of sympathy and caring flowed from the minority to the majority, and in this section we demonstrate that such expressions of sympathy were more reciprocal. in one mixed small group an extended exchange about how people selectively interpret the bible includes the following reflections: speaker 3: yeah like to me, these are the christians that have put me off christianity speaker 4: there are times when i have to question my religion [speaker 3: yeah] it has been because of certain muslims who like ruin it this demonstrates that the students are reflecting on their own religious perspective and therefore the conversation as a whole enables the students to avoid simplifying labels such as ‘christian’ or ‘muslim’. this rejection of homogenising interpretations of religions and religious identity is an essential element of the critical religious literacy advocated by davies (2008). prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 58 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) research into the teaching of fbvs has also found that students themselves are keen for their schools to provide this kind of educational response to the fbvs and prevent policy (jerome & elwick, 2019). in addition to the discussion about visits to the cathedral, students also discussed their more routine assemblies, which generally provide the school with an opportunity for a collective act of (christian) worship. speaker 2: not everyone is going to follow that religion, or believe in atheism, it says collective worship but if you don’t believe it why would you want to take part in that worship. you might not want to take part in it at all. should be your choice speaker 1: you shouldn’t be forced to if that worship conflicts with your own religion speaker 2: yeah speaker 3: the way that you adjust to it is to give them the option whether they want to attend the gathering or service at the school give them that option if they want to attend or not. you’re giving them that freedom speaker 2: those who want to go to the service can go and then have another room where they can do their own reflection or whatever in another group the students agreed that most of the moral lessons taught through assemblies were actually equally applicable across their different faiths: speaker 3: yeah like we’re all taught christian attributes but those attributes that we’re taught are a part of many other religions like “love thy neighbour” is present in islam and present in hinduism and in umm like speaker 4: i think they could also maybe do more for people who are questioning god and maybe not then force everyone to and require them to be part of collective worship when they didn’t want to be one student summed up their group’s conclusion on this point by stating: yes, there should be an act of worship but it could be renamed as a moment of silent reflection and we don’t think it should have a mainly overall christian character because it seems quite narrow. in these exchanges the students demonstrate the qualities of sympathy outlined by noddings and through this process they acknowledge the experiences and perspectives of those with other beliefs and none. 6. conclusion in the opening section of this article we argued that the fbvs are open to interpretation between the two poles of civic and ethnic-cultural nationalism. we noted evidence to suggest that in many schools the focus on britishness tends to promote the second form of nationalism, and that this generates several problems, not the least of which is the marginalisation of people who do not see themselves reflected in that narrow portrayal of britishness. a second problem is that the teaching that arises from this interpretation may not focus on the fbvs as elements of democracy, and thus fail to connect to critical citizenship education. the deliberative classroom project was written to promote a teaching approach which moved away from ethnocultural interpretations and which encouraged a form of talk that was open, exploratory and required close attention and respect for a range of opinions. the research project we undertook was designed to listen in on classroom conversations to determine what kind of discussions arose from using these materials. one overwhelming impression we have from reading the data from avon school is that the young people who discussed the issue of religious freedom almost entirely avoided framing their discussion in an ethno-cultural discourse, and actually largely avoided engaging with questions of nationalism at all. to this extent, the discussions reflect a civic debate, rather than a civicnationalist one. in part this seems to be a consequence of focusing the principled discussion on the school context. this meant that students were able to relate prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) jerome, liddle & young (2021) prism 59 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) this immediately to their own experience, and had the opportunity to listen to each other’s experiences. this exchange of experience and opinion both uncovered common ground and also highlighted areas of school life that could be improved in order to more fully respect everyone’s religious freedom. in considering these solutions, the students exemplify the kind of attitudes and skills promoted by the advocates of deliberative democracy but they did so in a manner which also reflected nodding’s (2002) principles of care about and for others. a report of a single discussion in a lunch hour between 14 children cannot aspire to prove anything. but it does illustrate that (at least these) young people are able to articulate complex ideas about religious freedom in a way that resists essentialist ideas about identity and difference, and which enables them to find pragmatic solutions to problems rather than resorting to simplistic solutions. earlier we cited noddings echoing dewey’s commitment that democracy was best seen as a mode of associated living, and this discussion demonstrates both how the students managed their interactions successfully as a means of association and how they were able to reflect on freedom as one dimension of such a way of life. this lends support, therefore, to the wider calls for a framing of fbvs within the tradition of critical citizenship education. 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank colleagues at the association for citizenship teaching (act) and the english speaking union (esu) for collaborating on the deliberative classroom resources; and the british academy for the research grant that enabled the data collection (srg\170492). 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 10. references anderson, b. 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(2007). new complexities of cohesion in britain: super-diversity, transnationalism and civilintegration, report to the commission on integration and cohesion. wetherby: department for communities and local government. vincent, c. (2019). tea and the queen: fundamental british values, schools and citizenship. policy press. winston, b. (2012). a right to offend.: bloomsbury. wiredgov online (2008). lord goldsmith recommends new emphasis on the common bond of citizenship. retrieved 26th june, 2020, from https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news1.nsf/0/b3498c0f68e9657480257409003ab337?o pendocument xenos, n. (1996). civic nationalism: oxymoron? critical review, 10(2), 212-231. doi: 10.1080/08913819608443418 yack, b. (1996). the myth of the civic nation, critical review, 10(2), 193-211. doi: 10.1080/08913819608443417 yuval-davis, n. (2006). belonging and the politics of belonging, patterns of prejudice, 40(3), 197–214. doi: 10.1080/00313220600769331 https://infed.org/mobi/nel-noddings-the-ethics-of-care-and-education/ https://infed.org/mobi/nel-noddings-the-ethics-of-care-and-education/ https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/b3498c0f68e9657480257409003ab337?opendocument https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/b3498c0f68e9657480257409003ab337?opendocument https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/b3498c0f68e9657480257409003ab337?opendocument prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 23 higher education and the politics of the radical imagination copyright © 2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (1): pp. 23-43 henry a. giroux mcmaster university girouxh@mcmaster.ca abstract in this paper, i address the vital civic principle that democracies cannot exist without informed citizens and that education itself must be about more than training and is essential to creating critical and engaged citizens. such an understanding is imperative at a time when democracy is under siege all over the globe. as an example of both the rise of authoritarianism and the challenge it poses to higher education, i focus on not only the election and presidency of donald trump but also an emboldened culture of manufactured illiteracy that exhibits a disdain for any notion of education wedded to the pursuit of the truth, science, and the public good. i argue that the trump administration is engaged in not simply a neoliberal political project designed to consolidate wealth and power in the hands of the financial elite, but also is reworking of the very meaning of education both as an institution and as a broader cultural force. democracy and politics itself are both in crisis and under siege. the central issue for this essay is what it might mean for educators to take seriously the notion that democracy should be a way of thinking about education one that thrives on connecting equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good. regarding the discourse of civic courage, social responsibility and the ethical imagination, i argue that civic literacy is crucial to a democracy and that the university must play a vital role in creating the formative cultures that make critically engaged citizens possible. in addition to taking up these issues, i will point to several recommendations that provide an alternative to some of the oppressive conditions now shaping institutions of higher learning, particularly in the united states. in doing so, i conclude with a particular emphasis on the need for educators to develop a new language of governance accompanied by reclaiming the discourse of civic courage and the ethical imagination, all of which i believe are central to any viable notion of transformative democratic change. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 24 1. introduction donald trump’s ascendancy in american politics has made visible a plague of deep-seated civic illiteracy, a corrupt political system, and a contempt for reason that has been decades in the making. it also points to the withering of civic attachments, the undoing of civic culture, the decline of public life, and the erosion of any sense of shared citizenship. galvanising his base of true believers in post-election demonstrations, the world is witnessing how a politics of bigotry and hate is transformed into a spectacle of fear, division, and disinformation. under president trump, the scourge of mid-20th century authoritarianism has returned not only in the menacing plague of populist rallies, fear-mongering, hate, and humiliation, but also in an emboldened culture of war, militarization, and violence that looms over society like a rising storm. the reality of trump’s election and his presidency may be the most momentous developments of the age because of the enormity and the shock it has produced. the whole world is watching, pondering how such a dreadful event could have happened. how have we arrived here? what forces have allowed education to be undermined as a democratic public sphere, capable of producing the formative culture and critical citizens that could have prevented such a catastrophe from happening in an alleged democracy? we get a glimpse of this failure of civic culture, education, and civic literacy in the willingness and success of the trump administration to empty language of any meaning, a practice that constitutes a flight from historical memory, ethics, justice, and social responsibility. under such circumstances and with too little opposition, government has taken on the workings of a dis-imagination machine, characterised by an utter disregard for the truth, and often accompanied, as in trump’s case, by ‘primitive schoolyard taunts and threats’ (gopnik, 2017). in this instance, orwell’s “ignorance is strength” materialises in the trump administration’s weaponised attempt not only to rewrite history, but also to obliterate it. what we are witnessing is not simply a political project but also a reworking of the very meaning of education both as an institution and as a cultural force. truth is now viewed as a liability and ignorance a virtue. under the reign of this normalised architecture of alleged common sense, literacy is regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data, and science is confused with pseudo-science. all traces of critical thought prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 25 appear only at the margins of the culture as ignorance becomes the primary organising principle of american society. for instance, two thirds of the american public believe that creationism should be taught in schools and most republicans in congress do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity, making the u.s. the laughing stock of the world (ellingboe and koronowski, 2016). politicians endlessly lie knowing that the public is addicted to exhortation, emotional outbursts, and sensationalism, all of which mimics celebrity culture. image selling now entails lying on principle making it easier for politics to dissolve into entertainment, pathology, and a unique brand of criminality. the corruption of both the truth and politics is abetted by the fact that the american public has become habituated to overstimulation and live in an ever-accelerating overflow of information and images. experience no longer has the time to crystalize into mature and informed thought. opinion now trumps reason and evidence-based arguments. news has become entertainment and echoes reality rather than interrogating it. popular culture revels in the spectacles of shock and violence (evans and giroux, 2016). defunded and corporatised, many institutions of higher education have been all too willing to make the culture of business the business of education, and the transformation has corrupted their mission. as a result, many colleges and universities have been mcdonalized as knowledge is increasingly viewed as a commodity resulting in curricula that resemble a fast-food menu (beck, 2010, pp. 53-59). in addition, faculty are subjected increasingly to a wal-mart model of labour relations designed ‘to reduce labor [sic] costs and to increase labor [sic] servility’ (chomsky, 2015). students fare no better and are relegated to the status of customers and clients. on a larger scale, the educational force of the wider culture has transformed into a spectacle for violence, trivialised entertainment, and a tool for legitimating ignorance. as education becomes central to politics itself it removes democratic values and a compassion for the other from the ideology, policies, and institutions that now control american society. other threats to higher education come from conservative think tanks, far-right groups, and right-wing pundits who are monitoring faculty syllabi, calling for universities to teach the great books model of humanities education, and urging legislators and college administrators to eliminate tenure and academic institutions that address major social issues such as poverty and voter registration. in some cases, alt-right and neo-nazi groups are issuing death threats against faculty who speak out against racism and other volatile social issues. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 26 i am not talking simply about the kind of anti-intellectualism that theorists such a richard hofstadter, ed herman, noam chomsky and susan jacoby have documented, however insightful their analyses might be. i am pointing to a more lethal form of illiteracy that has become a scourge and a political tool designed primarily to make war on language, meaning, thinking, and the capacity for critical thought. hedges (2009) is right in stating that ‘the emptiness of language is a gift to demagogues and the corporations that saturate the landscape with manipulated images and the idioms of mass culture’. words such as love, trust, freedom, responsibility, and choice have been deformed by a market logic that narrows their meaning to either a commercial relationship or to a reductive notion of getting ahead. we don’t love each other, we love our new car. instead of loving with courage, compassion, and desiring a more just society, we love a society saturated in commodities. freedom now means removing one’s self from any sense of social responsibility so one can retreat into privatised orbits of self-indulgence and unbridled self-interest. 2. manufactured illiteracy this new form of illiteracy does not simply constitute an absence of learning, ideas, or knowledge. nor can it be solely attributed to what has been called the ‘smartphone society’ (aschoff, 2015). on the contrary, it is a wilful practice and goal used to actively depoliticise people and make them complicit with the forces that impose misery and suffering upon their lives. at the same time, illiteracy bonds people, offers the pretence of a community bound by a wilful denial of facts and its celebration of ignorance. how else to explain the popular support for someone like donald trump who boldly proclaims, “i love the poorly educated!" (stuart, 2016). his followers are willing to put up with his contemptuous and boisterous claim that science and evidence-based truths are fake news, his dismissal of journalists who hold power accountable as the opposition party, and his willingness to bombard the american public with an endless proliferation of peddled falsehoods that reveal his contempt for intellect, reason and truth. what are we to make of the fact that a person who holds the office of the presidency has praised alex jones publicly and thanked him for the role he played in his election victory? jones is a conspiracy trafficker who runs the website infowars and believes that sept. 11 was an “inside job” and that the massacre of children at sandy hook was faked. why was there no populist revolt by his supporters for his endorsement of failed alabama senate candidate, roy moore, ‘who had eight allegations of child molestation and prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 27 assault and inappropriate sexual behaviour against him?’ how are we to explain the silence, if not endorsement by trump supporters in the face of a right-wing press that spreads insane conspiracy theories. this includes the reprehensible claim that david hogg, a student and journalist at marjory stoneman douglas high school, is a "crisis actor" rather than a witness to mass shooting in which 14 students and 3 staff people were killed. ideological extremists now lead the republican party in the united states. in fact, the face of that extremism was on full display recently when arthur jones, a holocaust denier and former leader of the american nazi party, won the republican nomination for the 3rd congressional district seat in illinois. the drumbeat of fascism is no longer a mere echo of the past. illiteracy no longer simply marks populations immersed in poverty with little access to quality education; nor does it only suggest the lack of proficient skills enabling people to read and write with a degree of understanding and fluency. more profoundly, illiteracy is also about refusing to act from a position of thoughtfulness, informed judgment, and critical agency. illiteracy has become a political weapon and form of political repression that works to render critical agency inoperable and restages power as a mode of domination. illiteracy both serves to depoliticise people because it becomes difficult for individuals to develop informed judgments, analyse complex relationships, and draw upon a range of sources to understand how power works and how they might be able to shape the forces that bear down on their lives. illiteracy provides the foundation for individuals to be governed, rather than a foundation that enables them to govern. this mode of illiteracy now constitutes the modus operandi of a society that both privatises and kills the imagination by poisoning it with falsehoods, consumer fantasies, data loops, and the need for instant gratification. this mode of illiteracy and education has no language for relating the self to public life, social responsibility, or the demands of citizenship. the prevalence of such manufactured illiteracy is not simply about the failure of colleges and universities to create critical and active citizens; it is about a society that eliminates those public spheres that make thinking possible while imposing a culture of fear in which there is the looming threat that anyone who holds power accountable will be punished (furedi, 2006). under such circumstances, the attack on education as a public good and literacy as the basis for producing informed citizens is less of a failing on the part of education, as many conservative pundits claim, than a deliberate policy to prevent critical thinking on the part of prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 28 both teachers and students. at stake here is not only the crisis of a democratic society, but a crisis of education, memory, ethics, and agency (mcchesney, 2015; de zengotita, 2006). what happens to democracy when the president of the united states labels critical media outlets as “enemies of the people” and derides the search for truth by endlessly tweeting lies and misrepresentations? what happens to democracy when individuals and groups are demonised based on their religion? what happens to a society when critical thinking and facts become objects of contempt and are disdained in favour of raw emotion or undermined by an appeal to what u.s. counsellor to the president kellyanne conway calls “alternative facts”? what happens to a social order ruled by an “economics of contempt” that blames the poor for their condition and subjects them to a culture of shaming? what happens to a public that retreats into private silos and becomes indifferent to the use of language in the service of a panicked rage that stokes anger but not about issues that matter? what happens to a social order when it treats millions of illegal immigrants as disposable, potential terrorists, and criminals? what happens to a country when the presiding principles of a society are violence and ignorance? what happens is that democracy withers and dies, both as an ideal and as a reality. in the present moment, it becomes particularly urgent for educators and concerned citizens all over the world to protect and enlarge the formative cultures and public spheres that make democracy possible. the attack on the truth, honesty, and the ethical imagination, makes it all the more imperative for educators to think dangerously, especially in societies that appear increasingly amnesiac, that is, countries where forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only wilfully practised but celebrated. all of which becomes all the more threatening at a time when a country such as the united states has tipped over into a mode of authoritarianism that views critical thought as both a liability and a threat. not only is manufactured illiteracy obvious in the presence of a celebrity culture that collapses the distinction between the serious and frivolous, but it is also visible in the proliferation of anti-intellectual discourses and policies among a range of politicians and antipublic intellectuals who are waging a war on science, reason, and the legacy of the enlightenment. how else to explain the present historical moment with its collapse of civic culture and the future it cancels out? what is to be made of the undermining of civic literacy and the conditions that produce an active citizenry at a time when massive self-enrichment prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 29 and a gangster morality at the highest reaches of the u.s. government undermine the public realm as a space of freedom, liberty, dialogue, and deliberative consensus? authoritarian societies do more than censor, they punish those who engage in what might be called dangerous thinking. at the core of thinking dangerously is the recognition that education is central to politics and that a democracy cannot survive without informed citizens. critical and dangerous thinking is the precondition for nurturing both the ethical imagination and formative culture that enable members of the public to learn how to govern rather than be governed. thinking with courage is fundamental to a notion of civic literacy that views knowledge as central to the pursuit of economic and political justice. such thinking incorporates a critical framework and set of values that enables a polity to deal critically with the use and effects of power, particularly through a developed sense of compassion for others and the planet. thinking dangerously is the basis for a formative and critical culture that expands the social imagination and makes the practice of freedom operational. thinking dangerously is the cornerstone of not only critical agency and engaged citizenship, but the foundation for a democracy that matters. 3. the politics of pedagogy any viable attempt at developing a democratic politics must begin to address the role of education and civic literacy as central to both politics and the creation of individuals capable of becoming critical social agents willing to struggle against injustices and fight to reclaim and develop those institutions crucial to the functioning and promises of a substantive democracy. one place to begin to think through such a project is by addressing the meaning and role of higher education and education in general as part of the broader struggle for and practice of freedom. across the globe, the forces of free-market fundamentalism are using the educational forces of the wider culture that include diverse cultural apparatuses such as the mainstream media, alternative screen cultures, and the expanding digital platforms to reproduce a culture of privatisation, deregulation, and commercialisation. this is while waging an assault on the historically guaranteed social provisions and civil rights provided by the welfare state, higher education, unions, women’s health centres, and the judicial system, among others, all the while undercutting public faith in the defining institutions of democracy. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 30 this grim reality is called a ‘failed sociality’ by honneth (2009, p. 188), characteristic of an increasing number of societies in which democracy is waning: a failure in the power of the civic imagination, political will, and open democracy. it is also part of a politics that strips the social of any democratic ideals and undermines any understanding of education as a public good and pedagogy as an empowering practice, a practice which acts directly upon the conditions which bear down on our lives in order to change them when necessary. one of the challenges facing the current generation of educators, students, and others is the need to address the question of what education should accomplish in a society at a historical moment when it is about to slip into the dark night of authoritarianism. what work do educators have to do to create the economic, political, and ethical conditions necessary to endow young people and the public with the capacities to think, question, doubt, imagine the unimaginable, and defend education as essential for inspiring and energising the citizens necessary for the existence of a robust democracy? in a world in which there is an increasing abandonment of egalitarian and democratic impulses, what will it take to educate young people and the broader polity to challenge authority and hold power accountable? this is a particularly important issue, especially when higher education in the united states and other countries is being defunded and students are being punished with huge tuition hikes and crippling finance debts. moreover, as education collapses into training, students are subjected to right-wing policies and a pedagogy of repression pushed by politicians, rightwing billionaires, and hedge fund managers (saltman, 2016; ravitch, 2014; giroux, 2015). such pedagogies are wedded to a debilitating audit culture that kills the imagination and imposes notions of accountability that are as sterile as they are intellectually deadening. given the crisis of education, agency, and memory that haunts the current historical conjuncture, educators need a new language for addressing the changing contexts and issues facing a world in which there is an unprecedented convergence of resources – financial, cultural, political, economic, scientific, military, and technological – increasingly used to exercise powerful and diverse forms of control and domination. such a language needs to be self-reflective and directive without being dogmatic and needs to recognise that pedagogy is always political because it is connected to the acquisition of agency. that is, education is always a moral and political practice that not only produces knowledge but also legitimates particular identities, modes of identification, desires, and narratives that support particular prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 31 individual and social relations. in this instance, making the pedagogical more political means being vigilant about ‘that very moment in which identities are being produced and groups are being constituted, or objects are being created’ (olson and worsham, 1999). it also suggests that educators need to be attentive to those practices in which critical modes of agency and particular identities are denied, viewed as excess or treated as disposable. in part, this suggests developing educational policies and practices that not only inform, inspire, and energize people but also challenge the growing number of anti-democratic practices and policies that inform the global tyranny of casino capitalism (ness, 2015). such a vision suggests resurrecting a democratic project that provides the basis for imagining a life beyond a social order immersed in massive inequality, endless assaults on the environment, and elevates war and militarisation to the highest and most sanctified national ideals. under such circumstances, education becomes more than an obsession with accountability schemes, audit culture, market values, and an unreflective immersion in the crude empiricism of a data-obsessed market-driven society. in addition, it rejects the notion that colleges and universities function to primarily train students for the workforce. this is a reductive vision now imposed on public education by high tech companies such as facebook, netflix, and google that want to encourage what they call the entrepreneurial mission of education, which is code for collapsing education into market-based notions of training (singer, 2017). central here is a notion of pedagogy that should provide the conditions for students to recognise how to use the knowledge they gain both to critique the world in which they live and, when necessary, to intervene in socially responsible ways in order to change it. critical pedagogy is about more than a struggle over assigned meanings, official knowledge, and established modes of authority: it is also about encouraging students to take risks, act on their sense of social responsibility, and engage the world as an object of both critical analysis and hopeful transformation. in this paradigm, pedagogy cannot be reduced only to learning critical skills or theoretical traditions but must also be infused with the possibility of using interpretation as a mode of intervention, as a potentially energising practice that gets students to both think and act differently. i think that jm coetzee, the nobel prize winner, is right in criticising the current collapse of education into training. he points out that ‘all over the world, as governments retreat from their traditional duty to foster the common good and reconceive of themselves as mere prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 32 managers of national economies, universities have been coming under pressure to turn themselves into training schools equipping young people with the skills required by a modern economy’ (coetzee, 2013). lost in this instrumentalised view is that students are not just workers but also citizens, and education is about more than training. learning skills for the work place is no excuse for purging from education what it means to teach students how to think critically, embrace the common good, exercise a sense of social responsibility and support a world of values, feelings, and the ethical and political foundation necessary for a democratic society (bauman and donskis, 2013, p. 196). yes, we must educate young people with the skills they need to get jobs but as educators we must also teach them to learn ‘to live with less or no misery [and] to fight against those social sources’ that cause war, destruction of the environment, ‘inequality, unhappiness, and needless human suffering’ (bauman, 2001). at issue here is the need for educators to recognize the power of education in creating the formative cultures necessary to both challenge the various threats being mobilised against the ideas of justice and democracy while also fighting for those public spheres, ideals, values, and policies that offer alternative modes of identity, thinking, social relations, and politics. however, embracing the dictates of making education meaningful in order to make it critical and transformative also means recognising that cultural apparatuses such as the mainstream media and hollywood films are teaching machines and not simply sources of information and entertainment. such sites should be viewed as spheres of struggle that need to be removed from the control of the financial elite and monopolistic corporations that use them as workstations for propagandising a culture of vulgarity, self-absorption, and commodification while eroding any sense of shared citizenship and civic culture. there is an urgent political need for both canada and the united states, among other countries, to understand what it means for an authoritarian society to weaponise and trivialise the discourse, vocabularies, images, and aural means of communication in a variety of education and cultural sites. there is also a need to grasp that a market-driven discourse does not provide the intellectual, ethical, and political tools for civic education (brenkman, 1995). how is such language used to relegate citizenship to the singular pursuit of unbridled self-interests, legitimate shopping as the ultimate expression of one’s identity, portray essential public services as reinforcing and weakening any viable sense of individual prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 33 responsibility, while using the vocabulary of war, militarisation, and violence to address a vast array of problems often faced by citizens and others. i do not believe it is an overstatement to argue that education can all too easily become a form of symbolic and intellectual violence, one that assaults rather than educates. examples of such violence can be seen in the forms of an audit culture and empirically driven teaching that dominates higher education, especially in the united states, and also increasingly in other countries such as the united kingdom, hungary, and turkey. these educational projects amount to pedagogies of repression and serve primarily to numb the mind and produce what might be called dead zones of the imagination. these are pedagogies that are largely disciplinary and have little regard for contexts, history, making knowledge meaningful, or expanding what it means for students to be critical and engaged agents. of course, the ongoing corporatisation of the university is driven by modes of assessment that often undercut teacher autonomy, treat knowledge as a commodity, students as customers, and impose brutalising structures of governance on higher education. under such circumstances, education defaults on its democratic obligations and becomes a tool of corporate interests and market driven values, all the while deadening the capacity to think otherwise in order to act otherwise. one of the fundamental challenges facing educators within the current age of an emerging authoritarianism worldwide is to create safe educational spaces for students to address ‘how knowledge is related to the power of self-definition’ and social agency (mohanty, 1989). education in this sense speaks to the recognition that any pedagogical practice presupposes some notion of the future, prioritises some forms of identification over others, upholds selective modes of social relations, and values some modes of knowing over others. moreover, such an education does not offer guarantees as much as it recognises that its own visions, policies, and practices are grounded in particular modes of authority, values, and ethical principles that must be constantly debated for the ways in which they both open up and close down democratic relations. the notion of a neutral, objective education is an oxymoron. education and pedagogy do not exist outside of ideology, values, and politics. ethics on the pedagogical front demands an openness to the other, a willingness to embrace a culture of questioning, dialogue, and an ongoing critical engagement with texts, images, events, and other registers of meaning as prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 34 they are transformed into pedagogical practices both within and outside of the classroom. education is never innocent because it is always implicated in relations of power and specific visions of the present and future. this suggests the need for educators to rethink the cultural and ideological baggage they bring to each educational encounter. it also highlights the necessity of making educators ethically and politically accountable and self-reflective for the stories they produce, the claims they make upon public memory, and the images of the future they deem legitimate. understood as a form of educated hope, education in this sense is not an antidote to politics, a nostalgic yearning for a better time, or for some ‘inconceivably alternative future’. instead, it is an ‘attempt to find a bridge between the present and future in those forces within the present which are potentially able to transform it’ (eagleton, 2000). when viewed as an important democratic public sphere, education can provide opportunities for educators, students, and others to redefine and transform the connections among language, desire, meaning, everyday life, and the material relations of power as part of a broader social movement to reclaim the promise and possibilities of an open society. in an age when authoritarianism is spreading across the globe, it should come as no surprise that many governments consider any notion of critical education dangerous because it creates the conditions for students and the wider public to exercise their intellectual capacities, cultivate the ethical imagination, hold power accountable, and embrace a sense of social responsibility. one of the most serious challenges facing administrators, faculty, and students in colleges and universities is the task of developing a discourse of both critique and possibility. this means developing discourses and pedagogical practices that connect reading the word with reading the world and doing so in ways that enhance the capacities of young people to translate their hidden despair and private grievances into public transcripts. at best such transcripts can be transformed into forms of public dissent or what might be called ‘a moment of “rupture”’ one that has important implications for public action in a time of impending tyranny and authoritarianism (falk, 2011). in taking up this project, educators and others should attempt to create the conditions that give students the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and courage necessary to make desolation and cynicism unconvincing and hope practical. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 35 democracy begins to fail, and political life becomes impoverished in the absence of those vital public spheres such as public and higher education in which civic values, public scholarship, and social engagement allow for a more imaginative grasp of a future that takes seriously the demands of justice, equity, and civic courage. democracy should be a way of thinking about education, one that thrives on connecting equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good. the question regarding what role education should play in democracy becomes even more urgent at a time when the dark forces of authoritarianism are on the march across the globe. as public values, trust, solidarities, and modes of education are under siege, the discourses of hate, racism, rabid self-interest, and greed are exercising a poisonous influence in many societies and is most evident in the discourse donald trump and his merry band of antiintellectuals and white nationalists. civic illiteracy collapses the distinction between opinion and informed arguments, erases collective memory, and becomes complicit with the growing criminalisation of a range of behaviours and the increasing militarisation of places such as public schools and society itself. yet, there are signs of hope. for instance, young people in the united states are protesting around a number of crucial issues. university students are organising against the massive increase in student debt. in parkland, florida, high school students are mobilising against gun violence. throughout the united states, young environmentalists are aggressively struggling against corporate polluters. students joined with teachers to wage a successful strike in west virginia. in short, in the age of financial and political zombies, finance capitalism has lost its ability to legitimate itself in a warped discourse of freedom and choice. its poisonous tentacles have put millions out of work, turned many black communities into war zones, destroyed public education, undermined the democratic mission of higher education, flagrantly pursued war as the greatest of national ideals, and turned the prison system into a default welfare institution for punishing minorities of race and class. it has also produced massive inequities in wealth, income, and power, pillaged the environment, and blatantly imposed a new mode of racism under the silly notion of a post-racial society. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 36 4. reviving the social imagination i want to conclude by raising the question of how as educators we can begin a meaningful conversation about how to redefine and reclaim the mission of colleges and universities as democratic public spheres. in doing so, i want to address in general terms the importance of what i have called the need for a new language of governance accompanied by reclaiming of the discourse of civic courage and the ethical imagination, all of which i believe are central to any viable notion of change that i am suggesting. regarding the politics of governance, i have argued both explicitly and implicitly that educators, students, and others concerned about the fate of higher education need to mount a spirited attack against the managerial takeover of the university that began in the late 1970s with the emergence of a market fundamentalism called neoliberalism, which is an economic system that argues that market principles should govern not just the economy but all of social life including education. this is an ideology that has produced cruel austerity policies, defunded public goods, and created what amounts to a culture of cruelty. central to such a recognition is the need to struggle against a university system developed around the reduction in faculty power, the replacement of a culture of cooperation and collegiality with a shark-like culture of competition, the rise of an audit culture that has produced a very limited notion of accountability and evaluation, and the narrow and harmful view that colleges ‘should operate more like private firms than public institutions, with an onus on income generation’ (hill, 2016, p. 13). in addition, any movement for reforming colleges and universities must both speak out against modes of governance that have reduced faculty to the status of part time employees and join the fight to take back the governing of the university from the new class of managers and bureaucrats that now outnumber faculty, at least in the united states but less so in canada. regarding the discourse of civic courage and the ethical imagination, i have argued that informed citizens are crucial to a democracy and that the university must play a vital role in creating the formative cultures that make such citizens possible. in part, this would mean creating intellectual spaces free of coercion and censorship and open to multiple sources of knowledge in the pursuit of truth, the development of critical pedagogies that inform, energise, inspire, empower and promote critical exchanges and dialogue. these should be spaces in which education focuses on ‘dispositions and qualities, on human flourishing, and prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 37 on the fulfilment of individual potential’ (nixon, 2015). education in the more critical sense aims to overcome the moral blindness and undermining of the social and ethical imagination that accompanies those deadening repressive pedagogies rooted in utterly instrumental approaches to teaching and learning. these are educational zones that accelerate the deadening of the mind, reduce social responsibility, and diminish the ability to imagine a future different from the present. there is also the need for providing faculty not only with time and resources necessary for critical teaching and meaningful scholarship but also full-time employment and protections for faculty while viewing knowledge as a public asset and the university as a public good. with these issues in mind, let me conclude by pointing to a few initiatives, though incomplete, that might mount a challenge to the current oppressive historical moment in which many societies and their respective colleges and universities now find themselves (aronowitz, 2014). first, there is a need for what can be called a revival of the social imagination and the defence of the public good in order to reclaim higher education’s egalitarian and democratic impulses. this call would be part of a larger project ‘to reinvent democracy in the wake of the evidence that, at the national level, there is no democracy—if by ‘democracy’ we mean effective popular participation in the crucial decisions affecting the community’ (aranowitz, 2014). one step in this direction would be for young people, intellectuals, scholars and others to go on the offensive against a conservative led campaign ‘to end higher education’s democratizing [sic] influence on the nation’ (nichol, 2008). higher education should not be harnessed to the demands of the warfare state nor the instrumental needs of corporations. clearly, in any democratic society, education should be viewed as a right, not an entitlement. educators need to produce a national conversation in which higher education is defended as a public good and the classroom as a site of deliberative inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking, a site that makes a claim on the radical imagination and a sense of civic courage. at the same time, the discourse on defining higher education as a democratic public sphere might hopefully provide the platform for moving onto the larger issue of developing a social movement in defence of public goods. second, i believe that educators need to consider defining pedagogy, if not education itself, as central to producing those democratic public spheres capable of creating an prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 38 informed citizenry. pedagogically, this points to modes of teaching and learning willing to sustain a culture of questioning and enable pedagogical practices through what kristen case calls moments of classroom grace (case, 2014). pedagogies of classroom grace point to the conditions for students and others to interrogate common-sense understandings of the world, and begin to question, however troubling, their sense of agency, relationship to others, and their relationships to the larger world. this is linked to broader pedagogical imperatives that ask why we have wars, massive inequality, a surveillance state, and a range of other problems. there is also the issue of how everything has become commodified, along with the withering of a politics of translation that prevents the collapse of the public into the private. these are not merely methodical considerations but also moral and political practices because they presuppose the creation of students who can imagine a future in which justice, equality, freedom, and democracy matter. in this instance, the classroom should be a space of grace a place to think critically, ask troubling questions, and take risks, even though that may mean transgressing established norms and bureaucratic procedures. such pedagogical practices are rich with possibilities not only for understanding the classroom as a space that ruptures, engages, unsettles, and inspires, but also extends the meaning of learning into wider cultural apparatuses in which education functions often by stealth to shape subjects, identities, and social relations, often so as to mimic the values of a market-driven society. education as democratic public space cannot exist under modes of governance dominated by a business model in which only corporate ceos are hired as university presidents; it undermines its democratic mission of the university when tenure-line faculty are filled with contract labour, students are treated as customers and learning is increasingly defined in instrumental terms removed from community needs. in the u.s. over 70 percent of faculty occupy non-tenured and part-time positions, many without benefits and salaries so low that they qualify for food stamps. it gets worse. in some parts of the united states, adjunct faculty are now hired through temp agencies. faculty need more security, full-time positions, autonomy, and the support needed to function as professionals. while not all countries emulate this model of faculty servility, it is part of a neoliberal legacy that has increasingly gained traction across the globe. third, educators need to develop a comprehensive educational programme that would include teaching students how to live in a world marked by multiple overlapping modes prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 39 of literacy extending from print to visual culture and electronic cultures. it is not enough to teach students to be able to interrogate critically screen culture and other forms of aural, video, and visual forms of representation. they must also learn how to be cultural producers. this suggests expanding the parameters of literacy and educating students to develop skills necessary for them to both produce and work in alternative public spheres such as online journals, television shows, newspapers, zines, and any other platform in which different modes of representation can be developed. such tasks can be accomplished by mobilizing the technological resources and platforms that many students are already familiar with. it also means working with one foot in existing cultural apparatuses to promote unorthodox ideas and views that would challenge the affective and ideological spaces produced by the financial elite who control the commanding institutions of public pedagogy in north america. as i mentioned earlier, what is often lost by many educators and progressives is that popular culture is a powerful form of education for many young people and yet it is rarely addressed as a serious source of knowledge. as stanley aronowitz has observed, ‘theorists and researchers need to link their knowledge of popular culture, and culture in the anthropological sense—that is, everyday life, with the politics of education’ (aronowitz, 2008, p. 50). fourth, academics, students, community activists, young people, and parents must engage in an ongoing struggle for the right of students to be given a free formidable and critical education not dominated by corporate values. this means young people should have more influence in the shaping of their education and what it means to expand and deepen the practice of freedom and democracy. put simply, educators need to be attentive to their histories, needs, aspirations, and hopes. at the very least, if higher education is to be taken seriously as a public good, it should be tuition free, at least for the poor, and affordable for the affluent. this is not a radical demand and is not unprecedented as countries such as germany, france, norway, finland, and brazil already provide this service for young people. accessibility to higher education is especially crucial at a time when young people have been left out of the discourse of democracy. they are the new disposable populations who lack jobs, a decent education, hope, and any semblance of a future better than the one their parents inherited. facing what richard sennett calls the “spectre of uselessness”, they are a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 40 reminder of how finance capital has abandoned any viable vision of the future, including one that would support future generations. this is a mode of politics and capital that eats its own children and throws their fate to the vagaries of the market. the ecology of finance capital only believes in short term investments because they provide quick returns. under such circumstances, young people who need long term investments are considered a liability. if any society is in part judged by how it views and treats its children, the united states by all accounts is truly failing in a colossal way. this is not a script to be repeated in canada. moreover, if young people are to receive a critical and comprehensive education, academics might consider taking on the role of public intellectuals, capable of the critical appropriation of a variety of intellectual traditions while relating their scholarship to wider social problems. this raises questions about the responsibility of faculty to function as intellectuals relating their specialised knowledge to wider social issues, thinking hard about ‘how best to understand how power works in our time’ and how education might function in the interest of economic and social justice (robbins, 2016). fifth, in a world driven by data, specialisms, and the increasing fragmentation of knowledge, educators need to enable students to develop a comprehensive vision of society that ‘does not rely on single issues’ (aronowitz, 2008, p. 50). it is only through an understanding of the wider relations and connections of power that young people and others can overcome uninformed practice, isolated struggles, and modes of singular politics that become insular and self-sabotaging. in short, moving beyond a single-issue orientation means developing modes of analyses that connect the dots historically and relationally. it also means developing a more comprehensive vision of politics and change. sixth, another serious challenge facing educators who believe that colleges and universities should function as democratic public spheres is the task of developing a discourse of educated hope. informed and educated hope goes beyond critique, extending it into the realm of the possible. critique is important for breaking through the hold of common-sense assumptions that legitimate a wide range of injustices. it is also crucial for making visible the workings of unequal power and the necessity of holding authority accountable. however, critique is not enough and lacking a discourse of hope can lead to a paralysing sense of despair or, even worse, a crippling cynicism. hope speaks to imagining a life beyond commodities, profits, and branding, combining a realistic sense of limits with a lofty vision of demanding prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 41 the impossible. reason, justice, and change cannot blossom without hope because educated hope taps into our deepest experiences and longing for a life of dignity with others, a life in which it becomes possible to imagine a future that does not mimic the present. i am not referring to a romanticised and empty notion of hope, but to a notion of informed and realistic hope that faces the concrete obstacles and realities of domination but continues the ongoing task of ‘holding the present open and thus unfinished’ (benjamin, 1997, p. 10). the discourse of possibility not only looks for productive solutions, it also is crucial in defending those public spheres in which civic values, public scholarship, and social engagement allow for a more imaginative grasp of a future that takes seriously the demands of justice, equity, and civic courage. democracy should encourage, even require, a way of thinking critically about education, one that connects equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good. authoritarianism has created in many societies a predatory class of unethical zombies who are producing dead zones of the imagination that even orwell could not have envisioned, while waging a fierce fight against the possibilities of a democratic future. one only has to look at the u.s. turkey, the philippines, and hungary, to realise that the time has come to develop a political language. this is one in which civic values, social responsibility, and the institutions that support them become central to invigorating and fortifying a new era of civic imagination, a renewed sense of social agency, and an impassioned international social movement with a vision, organisation, and set of strategies to challenge the neoliberal nightmare engulfing the planet. the dark shadow of authoritarianism may be spreading, but it can be stopped. that prospect raises serious questions about what educators, youth, intellectuals, and others are going to do today to make sure that they do not succumb to the authoritarian forces circling so many countries across the globe, waiting for the resistance to stop and for the lights to go out. my friend, the late howard zinn rightly insisted that hope is the willingness “to hold out, even in times of pessimism, the possibility of surprise.” to add to this eloquent plea, i would say that history is open, and it is time to think otherwise in order to act otherwise, especially if as educators we want to imagine and fight for alternative futures and horizons of possibility. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 42 references aronowitz, s. 2014. what kind of left does america need? tikkun (1st april 2014). online: https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/what-kind-of-left-does-america-need aronowitz, s. (2008). against schooling. boulder: paradigm publishers. aschoff, n. (2015). the smartphone society. jacobin magazine 17, (spring 2015). online: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/smartphone-usage-technology-aschoff/ beck, u. (2010). twenty observations on a world in turmoil. london: polity press. brenkman, j. (1995). raymond williams and marxism. in prendergast, c. (ed.). cultural materialism: on raymond williams. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. bauman, z. and leonidas, d. (2013). moral blindness: the loss of sensitivity in liquid modernity. london: polity. bauman, z. (2001). liquid modernity. london: polity press. benjamin, a. (1997). present hope: philosophy, architecture, judaism. new york: routledge. case, k. (2014). the other public humanities. the chronicle of higher education (13th january 2014). online: http://m.chronicle.com/article/ahas-ahead/143867/ chomsky, n. (2015). the death of american universities. reader supported news, (30th march 2015). online: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29348-the-death-of-american-universities coetzee, j.m. (2013). jm coetzee: universities head for extinction. mail & guardian, (1st november 2013). online: http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-01-universities-head-for-extinction eagleton, t. (2000). the idea of culture. malden, ma: basil blackwell. ellingboe, k. and koronowski, r. (2016). most americans disagree with their congressional representatives on climate change. thinkprogress (march 8, 2016). online: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/08/3757435/climate-denier-caucus-114th-new-research/ evans, b. and giroux, h.a. (2016). disposable futures: the seduction of violence in the age of the spectacle. san francisco: city lights. falk, b. (2011). between past and future. eurozine (26th may 2011). online: http://www.eurozine.com/betweenpast-and-future/ furedi, f. (2006). culture of fear revisited. new york: bloomsbury. giroux, h.a. (2015). education and the crisis of public values. new york: peter lange. gopnik, a. (2017). orwell’s “1984” and trump’s america. the new yorker (27th january 2017). online: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/orwells-1984-and-trumps-america hedges, c. (2009). the war on language. truthdig, (28th september 2009). online at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090928_the_war_on_language/ hill, r. (2016). against the neoliberal university. arena magazine 140. honneth, a. (2009). pathologies of reason. new york: columbia university press. mcchesney, f. (2015). rich media, poor democracy: communication politics in dubious times. new york: free press. mohanty, c.t. (1989). on race and voice. cultural critique 14. ness, i. (2015). southern insurgency: the coming of the global working class. london: pluto press. https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/what-kind-of-left-does-america-need https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/smartphone-usage-technology-aschoff/ http://m.chronicle.com/article/ahas-ahead/143867/ http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29348-the-death-of-american-universities http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-01-universities-head-for-extinction http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/08/3757435/climate-denier-caucus-114th-new-research/ http://www.eurozine.com/between-past-and-future/ http://www.eurozine.com/between-past-and-future/ http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/orwells-1984-and-trumps-america http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090928_the_war_on_language/ prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 43 nichol, g.r. (2008). public universities at risk abandoning their mission. the chronicle of higher education (31st october 2008). online: https://www.chronicle.com/article/public-universities-at-risk/10851 nixon, j. (2015). hannah arendt: thinking versus evil. times higher education (26th february 2015). online at: https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/hannah-arendt-thinking-versusevil/2018664.article?page=0%2c0 olson, g. and worsham, l. (1999). staging the politics of difference: homi bhabha’s critical legacy. journal of advanced composition. ravitsch, d. 2014. reign of error. new york: knopf. robbins, b. (2016). a starting point for politics. the nation (22nd october 2016). online: https://www.thenation.com/article/the-radical-life-of-stuart-hall/ saltman, k.j. (2016). scripted bodies: corporate power, smart technologies, and the undoing of public education. new york: routledge. singer, n. (2017). the sillicon valley billionaires remaking america’s schools. new york times (6th june 2017). online: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/tech-billionaires-education-zuckerbergfacebook-hastings.html?_r=0 stuart, t. (2016). watch trump brag about uneducated voters, ‘the hispanics’. rolling stone (24th february 2016). online: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-trump-brag-about-uneducated-votersthe-hispanics-20160224 de zengotita, t. (2006). mediated: how the media shapes our world and the way we live in it. new york: bloomsbury. https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/hannah-arendt-thinking-versus-evil/2018664.article?page=0%2c0 https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/hannah-arendt-thinking-versus-evil/2018664.article?page=0%2c0 https://www.thenation.com/article/the-radical-life-of-stuart-hall/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/tech-billionaires-education-zuckerberg-facebook-hastings.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/tech-billionaires-education-zuckerberg-facebook-hastings.html?_r=0 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-trump-brag-about-uneducated-voters-the-hispanics-20160224 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-trump-brag-about-uneducated-voters-the-hispanics-20160224 prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401212 15 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 beyond perfection: reclaiming death in and for education juliette clara bertoldo school of education/education department, maynooth university, maynooth, ireland (juliette.bertoldo@mu.ie) received: 12/11/2020 accepted for publication: 14/06/2021 published: 07/09/2021 abstract in associating death with education, this paper explores how the death register, and in particular the denial of death, is reflected in the treatment of contemporary education, aiming to construct the future as an object of knowledge for providing certainty and authority. through a reading of gert biesta’s theoretical considerations, i discuss how educational systems scientifically explained and measured are created to be fixed (or healed), in pursuit of a type of education as a social apparatus to enable or reach for a perfect future. i argue however, that such medical-like treatment runs the risk of negating the complex, relational, and fragile qualities of educational life. into the second part, i offer new perspectives on death and loss to be imagined as occasions for emancipation within pedagogical encounters between subjects; giving space for unpredictability, riskiness, ambiguity, and messiness to occur. my overall contention is that when desires of immortality overpower an appreciation of the finitude and fragility of all things, a part of life is denied. when education is not confronted with important and challenging questions on its purposes, this should be considered dangerous or even lethal for a safe system to thrive; we miss out on what is educational in education, we miss an encounter with reality. keywords: purposes of education, death, loss, subjectification, student-teacher relation 1. introduction educating is dying. baptiste jacomino (2016, p. 105) why should i be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? greta thunberg, cop24 2018 while greta thunberg’s protest continues to resonate (especially in my mind), and like many other educationalists alarmed by the intense acceleration and convergence of current crises, questions surrounding purposes of education – they spin in my head daily. how can one think about education when its role is precisely to educate in the present for a future deemed to be utterly damaged by human hubris and greed? it is through this deceptively simple, and far broader question, that this paper has emerged: an attempt to think with death as provocation to think ‘differently about education’ (foucault’s terminology in ball, 2019). specifically, https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401212 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:juliette.bertoldo@mu.ie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2013-9742 prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 16 4(1) within this paper, i shall argue that a crisis towards our relationship with mortality may say something about the way modern education is treated. here i frame education broadly, attending to two different but inseparable aspects: educational institutions and educational experiences, and the experience of what it means to be educated. in the sense of living a life in which we undergo personal and social transformation, this meshes with the way educational institutions are imagined, conceived, and governed. calling into question the ‘futurability of life itself’ (todd, 2020 p. 2), thunberg’s outrage implicitly underlies the association that i am most interested in: the relationship between death and education – one that is often eschewed, invisibilised, or simply unthought of in relation to educational thought and contexts. associating death with education might be considered odd, provocative, or even unfathomable, especially for those whose views on the purposes of education focus on preparing youth to function and survive in a given world. yet, living ordinarily ‘as if nothing serious was happening’, (a naïve representation i had about the world growing up in a rich country), is precisely the issue. glocal depletions of biodiversity, species extinction, coupled with climate change and ensuing social collapse, these are all confronting us with the idea that our lives may be destroyed within our own lifetimes, let alone those of our children. however, since becker’s (1973) seminal book on societal death-adverse and death-obsessed attitudes, bloated beliefs about human potency and quests for immorality are still well and truly alive in a market regime, and its competency-based systems, which peddle evasive ways of living and building walls of indifference. indeed modernity, largely sustained by the ongoing western project for the acceleration of growth – to which education in its different modalities both perpetuates and resists – has neglected and disrupted the idea that death is an intrinsic part of life. thus, in my view, the very idea that death does matter, and is in fact everywhere, is something that needs to be included as part of the ways in which we think about education. a first notable indication of the awkward rapport that education holds towards death is found in the paucity of educational literature exploring death as an issue of concern. reporting on this, bengtsson (2019) writes, ‘the handling of death’s educative potential within education and educational studies can be stated briefly: death is commonly not dealt with’ (p.65), with the exception of three fields of research. the first one being the specialised field of medical research mostly providing death education and training literature intended for health professionals dealing with death, dying, and grief (e.g., frommelt, 1991; wass, 2004). second, a narrower interdisciplinary strand combining health psychology and death education is concerned with mortality saliency and fear of death amongst students aimed at enhancing psychosocial wellbeing (see testoni & al., 2018, 2019). third, as death underlies most ecological discourses, the field of environment and sustainable education is responsive to this theme, embracing it with more or less emphasis across programmes (affifi & christie 2019). in that regard, two pioneering works have addressed explicitly the educative potential of death: a co-authored book titled ‘dark pedagogy’ (lysgaard & al., 2019), and a phenomenological study (part of a larger research project) on children’s experiences of death as they pertain to their understanding of non-human animals (russell, 2019). much like these three fields of study, the present paper arises out of the commitment to explore how death might inform education without segregating life from it. my intentions are not to advocate for an ontology of death, nor to frame education uniquely in terms of death by suspending the notion of life. quite the opposite, my aim is to start freeing up the death register illuminating how it might constitute a fruitful approach to reconsider ways of educating that put boundless faith in the future mirroring the ‘unity’ of the ‘invulnerable and autonomous’ learner (bengtsson, 2019, p. 66). in this sense, what i am claiming is that the very concept of education is always already about questions of life and death, though death seems to have been veiled, possibly in part by the enlightenment inheritance translated educationally into values and ideals of perfection, progress and development. to work through these ideas, the work of the educational theorist gert biesta constitutes my prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 17 4(1) central perspective because, according to him, education is precisely not about perfectibility nor narrow forms of instrumentalism1. within the first part of the paper, i explore some features of a deathdenying society reflected in the treatment of contemporary education ascribed to a current longing for a perfect and risk-free system (biesta, 2014) akin to a medical model where all efforts are motived by an ambition to prorogue death. i attempt to liberate the death register to discuss education when defined as a ‘strong, secure, predictable and risk-free’ object (biesta, 2014, p. 1), and further highlight the current educational ethos locked in a culture of measurement and performance, attesting ongoing efforts to control the future. into the second half, i briefly discuss the popular paradigm of education as cultivation, advocating for growth leading to further growth (biesta, 2017), emphasising a life-affirming register at the potential expense of questions of finitude and loss. in my view, understandings of death and loss may be imagined as emancipatory occasions within the pedagogical encounter between subjects of action, giving space for unpredictability, riskiness, jumpiness, ambiguity and messiness to occur, which are all constitutive of pedagogical actions and processes – and of life itself. the overall final contention considers that when education is bent to fit a medical model (until it breaks?) solely interested in achieving things for the future – such as social change, economic growth, or increasing a nationalistic sentiment – education runs the risk to become un-educational. indeed, supporting students to ‘face humanity’ in all its spectrum (todd, 2009) is a more vital and delicate educational task than one working towards a perfect system at the horizon, as such system may only exist and thrive when all human beings are removed from it. a final note, for the purposes of this paper, how i am understanding death and its register is limited to a temporal frame. honing onto death’s relationship to 1 in a similar vein, other educational theorists have critiqued the overly limited and instrumental definitions of education across public discourse, policy instances and funding (see for instance, todd 2016; masschelein and simons, 2013). time, and especially to its bond to futurity, allows me to tackle ideas orbiting around the fear of the unknown, and the resistance towards unpredictability, and hence, the desire to control – which have profound bearing for ways in which educational systems are conceived, as i am about to defend. that said, part of my wider research ambition is to think in line with philosopher rosi braidotti (2011) about death as process, hence, beyond its mere attachment to futurity, enticed to a linear temporal line. indeed, if death was solely framed within such projective quality, i would implicitly risk falling into what i am myself criticising. 2. education’s denial of death as anthropologists have long researched, the proliferation of beliefs of immortality and permanence have characterised humanity’s relationship with death throughout civilisations (e.g., cave, 2012; morin, 2002). contemporary narratives of immortality, historically carried out by the world’s greatest religions, have been supplanted by the colossal leap forward in medical science and genetics working against death. thus, to the ever-growing advances in modern medicine significantly increasing life expectancy, coupled with oppressive beauty standards of youth, longevity, and healthiness, so much of contemporary culture is about staving off death. indeed, western society bears understandings of death as either denied (becker, 1973), sequestered (mellor & shilling, 1993), or taboo (gorer, 1955); yet, what is lacking are not representations of death, visually ubiquitous in popular culture and media (staudt, 2009), but a failure to question our relationship with mortality. what is unknown, uncertain, and at risk of loss are often expressed by desires to control, measure, regulate or fix (may it be a self-image, political ideas, the environment, etc.,) in an attempt to order the world based on certainty, governed by factual or scientific knowledge. these prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 18 4(1) expressions are not new; sociologists such as zygmunt bauman (1989) and philosophers such as hannah arendt (1958) have, in different but comparable ways, articulated the potentially devastating consequences of worldviews filtered through the implications of modernity and science; especially when the latter is construed as a value-free practice emancipating reason over ethics. bauman’s articulation is rather telling to contextualise my argument, he wrote: ‘science was seen as, first and foremost, an instrument of awesome power allowing its holder to improve on reality, to re-shape it according to human plans and designs, and to assist it in its drive to self-perfection’ (p. 122). thus, entirely at the service of objective inquiry for everything to be known ‘reliably and truly’, scientific research followed an (imagined) natural order to better control and correct life (p. 119); one that corresponds to those forces driving western culture with efficiency, rationality, and productivity (merton, 1964). as such, the latter values, mobilised in the name of achievement and betterment of life (“whose” life is to be questioned here) are assumed to be the most effective ways of addressing problems that afflict the human condition – with death and dying being at the core of such concerns. thus, in an era of technological control over nature and human life, an appeal to contrive scientific evidence in professional practice becomes the norm, offering a belief – yet un-rational and unproven – in the domestication of uncertainty (biesta, 2010). following these views, mechanistic and causal processes are attractive, allowing outcomes to be located, targeted, and controlled. generating the effect of fixating data from the past to the present, and constructing the future as an object of knowledge to be mastered and its unpredictable risks securely managed. such a technocratic mindset is consistent with the modern treatment of death: once familiar and accepted, and its organisation collectively shared (ariès, 1974), the dying person is now concealed from the living ones, cared for in impersonal, and sanitised hospitals, yet associated with technological progress to alleviate pain and suffering (gawande 2014). the highly technical methods implicated in the process of modern death share a conceptual register to the ones of educational research and policy that foreground the necessity to measure and explain scientifically ‘what works’ generally mobilising large scale experimental research schemes, producing tools such as learning outcomes, standardised-tests, and other evidence-based practises (biesta, 2010). in fact, this way of treating education dominates educational spheres, especially in the last two decades, as education is locked in a culture of measurement, performance, and competition. this medical model relying on interventions based on a set of reductive metrics, operating via the restrictive notion of unilinear causation is problematic, as it downgrades the inherent complexity and openness of educational systems. hence, rather than research capturing the complexity of reality, it strives to instrumentalise and sanitise it, and fit the resulting research results in to formalised and decontextualised schemes, which corresponding to a rather sterilised approach. a second concern for biesta (2009) is the prevailing obsession with learning outcomes which operate to turn students and teachers into predictable objects of intervention. to put it differently, a rationale focused on results bypasses the fact that social systems are engaging with the malleable reality of human subjects (ibid., p. 496-497). indeed, outputs generated and presented as workable truths command educational practices, instead of informing them, and in the process replace educators’ judgments, and ethical sensibilities. both these concerns are echoed in the work of hammond (2019), writing in the context of higher education, who probes in depth these types of ‘empiricised and sanitised systems’, steered by impositional bureaucracies endorsing ‘behaviours of routine and predictability’, while constricting and governing academic subjectivities (p. 147). pathologising the regime of the modern university, he discusses how the production of ‘solidified knowledge’ fitting into already ‘classified, distributed, and conceived prescribed activities’, further debilitates spaces for creative experimentation, transgression, and freedom in thinking and practice (p. 142-143). in a similar spirit of institutional critique, o’donnell (2018) calls for greater attentiveness to the atmosphere or milieu of educational institutions that prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 19 4(1) inform students and teachers’ everyday sensed and felt experiences. intangible, specific (and indeed unmeasurable) moments of tension, surprises, confusion, or wonder are intrinsically part of subjectivity formation and the pedagogical experience, which, o’donnell argues, are divorced from, and hindered by these medical-like prescriptive processes. thus, to deter or occlude the emergence of these deeply relational events anchored in the pragmatics of education and daily pedagogical practice, might provide – from a research and policy perspective – safe and controlled spaces, yet contribute to undermining the atmosphere of the institution – and in a more extreme way may lead to dehumanising consequences, mirroring the implications of technological improvement in modern dying at the expense of cultural and familial undertakings. indeed, in high-tech health institutions, disconnected from mainstream human activity, ‘the deathbed became a place where suffering rages, one of enormous expense, agonising conflict and moral choice’, however, at the same time, these medical sites provide a certain safety and emotional protectiveness in their arrangement (moller, 2000, p. 9). one may ask if emotionally protective environments are always negative features, or if it is a matter of how they are related to. visibly, as in educational systems, the picture is not all black and white. premised in educational encounters, learning outcomes may themselves allow for a disruption of the established order, or not always be unproductive in that regard. moving beyond an either/or logic, such ends may not be problematic in and of themselves, rather it is how they are being engaged with. yet it is precisely because such educational/medical vision amputates teachers’ value-based judgments in response to specific situations and relationships, that 2 a future challenge will be to elaborate on the relationality of death, as some might argue that insofar death is the ultimate form of separation from the world, the relational quality to education would logically be lost within the death register. i aim to counter this view, by expanding my conception of death including a sensitivity to relationality, through considerations on the materiality of death, and via braidotti’s (2011) conceptualisation of death as ‘only another phase in the generative process’ (p. 333). this might help me capture the vitality, the flesh and blood nature of the world, involving the constant flux and fluidity education is put on an instrumentalist path, expecting teachers to produce results, and thus, eliminating any possible emancipatory quality. what comes forth in these readings, is the centrality of the relational dimension. the highly medicalised and technological means of controlling and regulating the end of life, rendered so individualistic, insulating, and almost cruel, clearly have the power to alienate human relations. in the educational realm, the assumption that improvement has to be done at level of systems (compelled to be greatly reduced to fit causal standards), and not of people, might also rescind or damage the space for relationality,2 which raises the fundamental question of what the purpose of education is. furthermore, these outcomes based on past situations are claimed to be applicable for any situation; instead of research uniquely indicating what has been possible in the past without any guarantee that it will repeat, this allows space to remain radically open to future possibilities. it seems that this ostensibly problematic relationship with the future – mired to a deeper fear of mortality – is enacted within education, construed as a means for building an ideal future, and appears to deny present circumstances. as a result, a ‘common-sense’ view of what matters in education emerges, one that prioritises ‘academic achievement in a small number of curricular domains’, that are easily quantifiable and comparable (biesta, 2009, p. 37). schools end up measuring what is assessable and not what they value, reaching most of the population at arguably shallow levels of knowledge. this ‘common-sense’ is further sustained by the popular rhetoric whereby students are compelled to be equipped for an unknown, ever-changing, fast-paced and digitised between life and death– which then would not annihilate the notion of relationality, but give rise to different forms of relating and becoming, and also complicate the divide between the old and the new. moreover, the relationality of death might be viewed from another angle, through the spectrum of loss, separation, and grief, and what these experiences generate in terms of our engagement with and in the world. prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 20 4(1) future; or more pragmatically put, ‘for unknowable forms of employment, labour and work’ (o’donnell, 2017, p. 41). the anxiety that transpires from this rhetorical belief might justify such vision of education as it aims to maintain a veneer of certainty and functionality in an uncertain world. 3. the ambition of perfectibility in education alongside the above considerations within the global educational reform, a language particular to the 21st century student has flourished,3 whereby young people are urged to acquire skills. o’donnell (2017) argues that this renders educated bodies as ‘disembodied, abstract and generic’, and increasingly shaped by ‘social, political, economic, and educational imaginaries’ (p. 43). here again, these are not inherently controversial, but rather highlight concerns in how one relates to them. that is to say, the skill and competence discourse when directed at the perfectibility of tomorrow’s citizens, highlights the need to always grow (fast), compete, and adapt if one wants to succeed – or perhaps more accurately, if one wants to survive. so, for the modern individual extremely pressured by time – by the precipice of his own death (?) – the notion of predictability becomes a very attractive asset. indeed, under the siege of the capitalist system, knowledge needs to be ingested quickly and efficiently, and further used productively and flexibly. hence education becomes the primary vehicle to maximise students’ learning quota, turning them as fast as possible into dynamic and employable citizens (sidorkin, 2012). what is implied in this account is the continued prevalence of ideals associated with progress, and the development of a future good, made accessible for all, and secured by the rational functions of modernity. the future in this context – although a rather elusive concept – could be referred to as ‘the ultimate destination of the human’, construed as an ever-moving upward curve towards perfection (braidotti, 2011 p. 295); this 3 one usually labelled as a self-directed learner that can think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, collaborate, solve problems, innovate, adapt and is computer-literate. favours the erasure of past learnings and constricts deeper attunement to present conditions. indeed, since the present is always already determined by its pursuit of a perfected version of itself, infinitely lying ahead, how can it be complete, or ever satisfying (todd, 2009)? in my view, these expectations and processes implicitly express (perhaps subconsciously) unsustainable desires of immortality and invulnerability, cement atemporal truths about ‘what works’ in order to achieve things in the future, with these things measured against a supposedly good past. however, as sidorkin (2012) reminds us, even our most ingenious learning methods never seem to be fast enough; as soon as we get good at anything, it is time to “check out”. he says, ‘one reason we abhor death is that it seems to be a tremendous waste of the most precious commodity: our own memory and skills. to cheat death, we keep inventing new and new forms of learning’ (p. 95). following this, it is not unconceivable to imagine educational systems utilising the complex efficiency of individually tailored algorithms, to subordinate teacher autonomy and eradicate any presumed risks.4 this in turn, would obscure the likelihood of human relationality emerging as part of the heart of education; rendering it impossible for teachers’ to task students to explore and practice learning by utilising aspects of their own subjectivity. therefore preventing them from experiencing, thinking, caring, and living with human and non-human others. this also offers further emphasis on why the notion of survival is problematic, as it is associated with discourses of competition, performance, and student satisfaction; positioning young people as opponents or consumers, at a time when collegiality is gravely needed (gibbs, 2017). this concern appears to be particularly justified for young people absorbed in the challenging phase of adolescence, and the frailties of 4 the restrictions imposed by the current covid-19 pandemic provide a glimpse of an educational reality under the algorithmic turn embedded in new arrangements of online learning and imposed remote teaching. prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 21 4(1) their formative selves bombarded by signs and slogans from a relentless consumer culture; their identities infused with artificially created needs and desires, that require to be instantly and endlessly fulfilled. these pressures situate them in the centre of ‘their’ world, rather than ‘in and with’ the world around them (biesta, 2015; p. 238, my emphasis). in this sense, the instrumentalisation of education as a tool for individual perfectibility, striving towards (economic) success, neatly aligning to modern praised values of entertainment and efficiency of activity and productivity, seems to be a dangerous path for education – indeed for all of us – to follow. especially in an era characterised by an outrageous lack of responsibility and care towards the planet, which is – unfortunately – considered to be infinitely replete with natural resources to be used for the satiation of all human desires. the banalised and rabid individualism associated with this individualising consumer culture causes estrangement, fear, and also hate of the other. 4. the eventual fallibility of a strong, secure and predictable system in this view, education is predicated on a pathological premise to which its weaknesses ought to be highlighted and diagnosed. as argued, modernity is addicted to, or at least expects far too much from science and technology to answer all ills and demands. the marketisation of new improved products and technological quick fixes relentlessly promise to make one’s life more fulfilling and viable; fighting death and numbing pain therefore become public health imperatives. the plethora of fantasies created to decelerate the weakening of the body and the mind are recent proofs of the strength and universality of the belief of immortality.5 yet, these so-called ‘miracle solutions’ might only be attempts to tame the fear of the inevitable, while mitigating individual suffering. this is why death is typically viewed as failure and a source of shame. gawande 5 from anti-ageing creams, to cryonics, and other bizarre experiments such as mind uploading (the scientific efforts to replicate human minds to expand our experience into a virtual afterlife). (2014), a health researcher and surgeon, claims that his ‘profession has succeeded because of its ability to fix’. he writes, ‘if your problem is fixable, we know just what to do. but if it’s not? the fact that we have had no adequate answers to this question is troubling’ (p. 8-9). similarly, education plated onto clinical arrangements does offer some comfort, although unrealistically tethered to huge expectations in relation to what it is supposed to achieve and deliver for society. whether it is used as a political instrument directed towards honourable deeds (such as democracy or social justice), or exposed to populist endeavours (vlieghe & zamojski, 2019), the consequences of this type of education, means that such weighty expectations cannot be met. however, as with the medical profession, the failure to fix or to improve is not an option. what does not seem to be taken into account, as i have stressed above, is the fact that reality is messy, complex, utterly relational, and driven by a multiplicity of contradicting values. yet, we desperately aim to paint a glossy picture of education, while concealing the lived and differentiated realities of students and teachers in either schools, colleges, or universities. a rather compelling example at the institutional level of a system that seeks to erase social differences, yet only reinforces those very differences, is the contextless and supposedly neutral measurement of students’ achievement displayed in league tables or pisa scores. on a different level, the language of schooling foregrounding a democratically shared vision of ‘the ideal educated subject’ who embraces a pedagogical experience ‘constructed entirely through its adventures and experiences in the world’, also fails to recognise those students who do not fit in (stillwaggon, 2017, p. 53) (this point will be further developed). accordingly, the reification and idealisation of these educational mindsets, and systems – somewhat exposing a repulsion to change and loss – cannot tolerate failure nor offer space for resistance and criticism considered as potential prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 22 4(1) disruptions. therefore, possibilities of posing nuanced democratic value-laden questions on its purposes are generally dodged or obliterated (e.g. biesta, 2014; ball, 2019; hammond, 2017); as with the topic of death, it is easier to avoid it than to deal with it. consequently, in both the medical and educational fields, death remains the last threat to the faith we have placed on values of rationality, and predictability that which even science cannot counter. in this context, death forcefully exposes scientific knowledge and technology’s shortcomings stemming from a mechanistic ontology, revealing their limited capacity to fix life problems, and as emphasised here, might be part of the problem themselves. 5. the eventual fallibility of a strong, secure and predictable system society is not only inimical to death, but also the experience of loss that is intrinsically tied to it. loss can take various shapes, from the separation of the dark-secure warmth of womb, to a youthful body, or any rigid or essentialist ideas one holds towards their identity. these events chart human existence: some may be painful as they abruptly reveal the passage of time, and unveil no possibility of going back. broadly speaking, the capitalist construct engenders the belief that existence is valued and relevant when something is acquired – skills, knowledge, money, a person, a social status, etc.6 – to the extent that one can identify with their possessions to cope with their insecurities and fear of loss (kasser & sheldon, 2000). thus, insofar as the act of possessing is deified, existential notions of loss also become despised or abhorred – a vicious circle indeed. this societal aversion to death and loss also says something about the way education is envisaged and the ways in which pedagogical approaches are turned towards the future, movement, perpetual adaptation and growth. such a perspective captures quite rightfully the popular paradigm of ‘education as cultivation’ (biesta, 2015), or the promise of 6 fromm’s (1997) discussion on the distinction between having and being is particularly relevant here. educational ‘growth’ presented as something that is incontestably meaningful (stillwaggon, 2017), involving the perpetual acquisition of lifelong skills, competencies, and other refined or cultured behaviours. foregrounding and informing the abstract notion of a democratic and ‘ideally educated subject’ (ibid., p. 51-53), these paradigms are found in many constructivist student-centred learning theories and practices; guided by techniques designed to make learning enjoyable, effortless, and effective. these often embrace a child-friendly language peppered with gardening and ecological metaphors (e.g. growth, flourishing, blossoming), intended to purify an unpopular didactic approach, that yet do not impede its manifestation.7 in these settings, children are exposed to the broadest range of resources (encompassing everything and anything people make for the next generation), and are encouraged to explore, and experience the environment around them for their natural qualities to take root and grow. in these pedagogical scenarios, teachers are narrowly defined as facilitators (biesta, 2014), instead of, for instance, as risk-takers, purposefully challenging the pre-given (ball, 2019). thus, through the act of grabbing, students learn to adapt, to build a sense of identity associated with preestablished knowledge, and to develop the capacity to survive in new situations. wedded to the moderncolonial desire to know the world to control it, student-learners are similar to explorers expanding their knowledge of a world seemingly at their disposal; turning the object of learning in to their construction, their understanding, and their comprehension; rather than the world addressing them, and de-centering them (biesta, 2015, p. 237239, my emphasis). given these accounts, cultivation and growth as educational imaginaries align quite neatly with 21st century educational goals envisioned to improve education aimed at perfecting individuals. in this context, such paradigm comforts anthropocentric inclinations in perceiving the world 7 just as the language of death becoming ‘more and more unmentionable’ around the mid-20th century in a hope to conceal the reality of its occurrence by not naming it directly (gorer, 1955). prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 23 4(1) as a dispensable commodity, and further annihilates the conception of the finitude of all things. 6. thinking about education differently: death within the teacher-student relationship the question of time is presented once more. if ‘cultivation’ is solely understood as an impetus towards the future with no perspective of an end point, or a rupture, then are students considered – albeit unconsciously and unsystematically – immortal beings in need of being endlessly educated? or to use a popular term, a ‘lifelong learner’?8 to imagine an education that involves the notion of death might be counter-intuitive for educators wishing to offer a safe and pleasant environment. yet, what if these ‘stage theories of development that encode the modernist narrative of progress were only a defensive posture that allows us to ward off our deep knowledge of the pervasive and interminable nature of loss?’ (silin, 2013, p. 19). as cultivation happens through acquiring external resources that are out there, students’ inner faculty to say no to adaptation – the expression of their subject-ness – is occluded; hence, the possibility to stand as a subject in their own right becomes a difficult venture. these educational ‘modernist narrative[s] of progress’, are typically understood as ‘powerful intervention from the outside to set students free’ (biesta, 2014, p. 7). the problem is that such educational project locates the teacher always ahead of the one who needs to be educated in order to be liberated, and in turn risks being hypocritical in regard to what its original intent is. this narrative of progress aiming to supposedly emancipate the minds is for jacques rancière (1991) ‘the pedagogical fiction’, which is ‘the representation of inequality as a retard in one’s development’ (p. 119; emphasis in original text). from this perspective, education is understood as a never-ending endeavour, because it is one in which the docile student will never be able to reach the ‘master’ and, thus never ‘learn to be equal in an unequal society’ 8 an assumption that parallels the current pressure to forever remain a student only to respond to economic imperatives, rather than out of a free-willed choice or intellectual curiosity for instance. (ibid., p.133). in a way, one could say that the closer the gap becomes, the clearer it is infinitely big. however, according to rancière, emancipation is not something to be reached in the future, some sort of educational promise or ‘a setting free which assumes inequality’ (vlieghe & zamojski, 2019; p. 156); instead, emancipation ‘occurs in events of subjectification, when individuals resist existing identities and identity-positions and speak on their own terms’ (biesta 2014, p. 7). and this resistance i argue, could be construed as a deadly interruption, simultaneously leading to an experience of loss, yet possibly transforming into an event in which students extract themselves from existing orders, and come into the world as subjects of action and responsibility. this way of thinking about education allows the expression of one vital and existential educational function: the subjectification dimension (biesta 2014).9 death and loss as occasions for emancipation might be a thought-provoking idea for education, and especially within the teacher-student relation. as briefly articulated, for the subject-ness of the student to come to life – with also the potentiality to say no – a kind of death may be endured. on this view, death and life are not opposed to each other, but are intrinsically linked to one another. to further my argument, i turn to jacomino’s (2016) reading of michel de certeau, who bluntly states: ‘educating is dying’ (p. 106). jacomino explains that teachers ought not to assure a permanent and rigid position; rather they are called to build the conditions of their withdrawal (which does not equate with the negation of teaching itself). students upon receiving what teachers have to offer – assuming that they welcome the gift of teaching and let themselves be moved by it (biesta 2014, p. 57) – have the possibility to create novelty, and to shift outside existing orders of consensus. therefore, for students to become emancipated, ‘to come into the world’ on their own 9 other important contributions on subjectification are those by ruitenberg (2013), and ball (2019) who speaks in terms of ‘self-formation’ as ‘production of a subject’ (p. 134). prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 24 4(1) terms, a necessary separation needs to take place.10 in the context of death, education becomes a lesson of separation, of taking distance, and acquiring autonomy; as death occurs precisely as an event that modifies the normal order of life, a change of condition, which can only happen in the present; and which cannot be contained in any educational techniques, or policy documents. embarking on such an educational journey demands courage and willingness as both students and teachers might face deep ambivalence towards the ‘new’, and the intensity of their commitment to the old (silin, 2013, p. 18). however, letting an idea, a belief, a way of being, or thinking die, may be resisted – and often for valuable reasons. yet, when fuelled by curiosity one has the courage to lose something, they may notice the formation of small cracks piercing through their being (may it be through the cognitive, affective, or relational layer), bestowing new and surprising insights and understandings. they have then the possibility to take a new, unique step in the world, a kind of re-birth; and thus, have the opportunity to create spaces for reimagining ways of being and doing.11 here, i am thinking of these spaces as they relate to those defined by ball (2019) whereby ‘agonism would be valued and failure would be a constructive opportunity to learn and change – 10 one might ask if such impermanent position is a responsible one for teachers to aspire for, especially in light of the common understanding that teaching is the cause of learning, stemming from interventionist educational principles. accordingly, it could be argued that if teachers are held accountable for students’ entire achievements, it would certainly be irresponsible, or counterproductive, for them to disappear. 11 one important point to consider here though, is precisely what concerns stillwagon (2017): insofar these hoped transformative educational moments brush off, or deny students’ past knowledge, identities or attachments for the sake of becoming the ‘educated subject’ that education promises (as discussed earlier), they negate the subject, and thus, run the risk of becoming entirely un-educational. 12 to offer a practical example and purely from an anecdotal perspective, it was my experience that the thought experiment ‘education 2048’ designed by the decolonial futures collective (2021), activated a deep both of which take time’ (p. 137). although, ball’s register does not comprise death, his views on education liken to such symbolic death, opening up paths to ‘start again’ towards change and alterity to an otherwise bounded self – curiosity and courage being for him too necessary forces to tentatively step into the unknown to see and imagine differently12. as silin (2013) articulates, ‘at the heart of every loss is the possibility of the generative act’ (p. 20). loss then can play a transformative role, with all the messiness, suffering and complexity that comes with being transformed. the interruption, the unsettling, or the reversal of hegemonic and/or habitual thought patterns also come with reactivating the remembrance of those pasts who have been ignored. so, to be educational, loss should not be conflated with forgetting, denying, or romanticising the entanglements of the past. this transformation, i argue, can be triggered through the encounter between subjects, hence, through the event of teaching. yet, for such act to be generative, the student’s will is crucial. as the emancipatory educator asks: ‘do you want to go on an intellectual adventure?’, if a wilful response is uttered, the student at some point will undeniably be confronted with loss.13 valuing the emergence of these unpredictable cracks seems essential in the reconsideration of my ways of living and thinking and their inherent contradictions, not only as a young educational researcher, but as a white european woman benefiting every single day from the comforts and pleasures of an unsustainable and violent system that i critique in my work and personally. propelled in 2048, the experiment calls forth a reflection on the role of education at the brink of social and ecological collapse in or beyond our lifetimes. while immersed in the exercise, as i felt affectively overwhelmed by the realisation of my own complicity being part of that system, the limits of meaning-making were viscerally felt. a part of me died-with beliefs and modernist certainties unquestioned until this day. a reorientation to unlearning and unknowing emerged; the drive to writing my doctoral thesis is part of this process, as i gradually understood education (and myself!) to always be dancing on a tight double-edge sword, at once implicated and transformative. 13 and supposing that their answer is negative, what might the teacher risk? could we figuratively say that teaching is prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 25 4(1) educative event, precisely because they work against the current educational ethos of certainty and fixed truths. furthermore, what is at stake for teachers is the challenging task to invite students to think, and act on their own. eruptions of confusion, uneasiness, ambiguity, irritation, and inspiration may surface as teachers point into many directions, questioning their students’ desires, shaking existing beliefs, opening up new grounds, and breaking others. besides, for a subject to emerge, ethical educators have the delicate task to articulate their desire to ‘alter’ students’ thinking, hoping to provoke curiosity, and new insights, yet without imposing, as they regard them as free subjects (todd, 2012, p. 80); thus, paradoxically, desiring something, and simultaneously letting go of that desire14. in other words, the educational concern ‘lies in the transformation of what is desired into what is desirable’ (biesta, 2014, p. 3), as what is desirable shows that it is not possessed (there is only a potentiality). therefore, from that particular moment, the student can affirm an alterity that the teacher witnesses, which the latter can neither anticipate, predict, nor produce. perhaps it is through this volatile and fallible process that teachers might realise their own fate, and begin to trust the unknown and the unpredictability of the educational event, which also involves to surrender to the aspiration of altering students’ ways of seeing and being, without waiting anything in return. indeed, one will never know if an imprint will be left on the side of the student as a result of teaching. this is one of the fundamental reasons why education inevitably entails a risk, will always remain fragile, and in some cases, is totally ineffective. in this light then, death calls for a different sensibility than one usually activated in mainstream educational discourses geared towards the imperious task of securing knowledge. death in this sense, is a powerful reminder that not everything can be fixed, nor similar to embarking on a pedagogical suicide mission? if i take the metaphor seriously, it is worth thinking on a kind of suicidality informing the teacher’s role. 14 the process of letting go is, according to me, different than the suicidal ‘quality’ mentioned in footnote #13, as it resolved, and consequently may disrupt blind certainties and a sense of hubris. 7. conclusion this paper aimed at articulating how a crisis involving our relationship with death prompts questions on how formal education is envisaged: subjected to unrealisable targets for a seamless future, while denying present conditions, and therefore whipping out what is at its heart, its relational quality. i have shown that thinking with the register of death is instrumental for resisting these discourses arguably maintaining unsustainable and insular attitudes towards a world that needs to be urgently cared for. yet, a more extensive analysis of what the death register can offer to the pedagogical relationship, and to education as a whole, is to be further explored. however, i hope that this early discussion illuminates, via a new angle, an understanding of education that differs from the privileged, technicised, and interventionist ways of managing education. for one thing, to include death in our educational imaginary sheds light on the concept of time. when the passage of time is negated or messed up with, our very condition of being mortal, remains somewhat of an illusion. we are not eternal, and the more we try to be, the more we continue to harm ourselves, others, the planet, and our social systems. hence, education solely modelled on medical parameters – aiming to suspend death indefinitely – is not desirable as it denies complexity and relationality. indeed, as biesta contends, we miss out what is educational in education. we miss an encounter with reality. moreover, in wringing out the usually negative register of death and loss, my hope is to generate a conversation on how these notions, and their implications, may be imagined as powerful educational experiences, as well as their bearing for practice. indeed, the concept of death might be of is more of a passive process, whereas suicide is generally a premediated act, which entails a sense of control and selfmanagement (of one’s own death). prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) prism 26 4(1) interest when understood as a collapse or a fruitful loss to start considering such emancipatory quality, the moment education is viewed as an imperfect, interdependent, and fragile affair – just like us. therefore, when education walks away from being an instrument of intervention in the name of everlasting growth and progress, its trajectory may be redirected to follow an emancipatory path, one that refuses to objectify students and teachers, and that might offer new pathways to encounter the world more sustainably, meaningfully and empathically. as a final word, i turn to affifi & christie (2019) who write: ‘the continuation of a rich and viable biosphere seems to depend on us coming to terms with the imminent ending of all we might wish to remain eternal’ (p. 1154). 8. disclosure statement the author declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) bertoldo (2022) 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https://doi.org/10.1080/07481180490432315 prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401218 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401218 1 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 editorial – special edition: doctoral research in education michael thomas,1 john goulding,2 mireille patrick,3 1 school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (m.thomas@ljmu.ac.uk) 2 school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (j.goulding1@2019.ljmu.ac.uk) 3 school of nursing and allied health, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (m.patrick@ljmu.ac.uk) 1. introduction this special edition of prism brings together seven papers authored by postgraduate research students arising from the 1st international doctoral research conference in education hosted by the centre for educational research (ceres) at liverpool john moores university on 8th july 2020. over 500 participants registered for this fully online event delivered via videoconferencing from over 17 different countries, just as the first of our several lockdowns were occurring throughout the world due to the covid-19 pandemic. the conference involved over 60 presentations and addressed a wide range of themes, from initial teacher education to the role of digital technologies, decolonising the curriculum and the philosophy of education. keynote lectures were delivered by professor lesley gourlay (university college london), dr peter kahn (liverpool university) and dr gary motteram (university of manchester). the event was inspired by the theme of ‘resilience in doctoral research’, a particularly apt one at a time of significant disruption to students and supervisors involved in the initial stages of emergency remote online learning. indeed, many of the doctoral students involved in the event were also in the process of significantly adjusting their on-going research to adapt to the transition to digital practices in terms of remote supervision, ethics, and data collection and analysis. rhody-ann thorpe’s paper, the idea of a postcolonial university, explores issues of diversity and inclusivity while challenging traditional models of higher education in the english-speaking world, arising from inherited oxbridge models. in particular, the paper traces the connections between higher education and british colonial policy, and analyses how they have continued to exert an influence in the post-independence histories of many former colonies, and explores the vision of a future postcolonial university. in beyond perfection: reclaiming death in and for education, juliette clara bertoldo examines how the ‘death register’ is represented in contemporary education. drawing heavily on the work of gert biesta, bertoldo deconstructs notions of education that marginalise and deprivilege what she calls the ‘complex, relational, and fragile qualities of educational life’. reconfiguring death as a space for ‘unpredictability, riskiness, ambiguity, and messiness to occur’ leads to a repositioning of education as an encounter with a complex reality rather than something that can or ought to be controlled. nicola robertson’s the future of teaching? asimov’s three laws and the hypothetical robot teacher, explores the barriers to using technology in https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401218 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:m.thomas@ljmu.ac.uk mailto:j.goulding1@2019.ljmu.ac.uk mailto:m.patrick@ljmu.ac.uk https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/441 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/441 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/413 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/413 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/442 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/442 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/442 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6451-4439 prism (2022) thomas, goulding & patrick (2022) prism 2 4(1) education, arising from an experiment in china involving the use of remotely controlled robotic teachers. examining asimov’s three laws of robotics as a foundational base for predicting the behaviour of a potential, autonomous, robot teacher, the paper investigates three hypothetical scenarios to determine to what extent robot teachers could effectively engage in teaching activities. at a time when artificial intelligence (ai) is making significant advances in web-based education, the paper aims to stimulate more critical approaches to the integration of new technologies. stephen foster, denise whitelock, simon cross and karen kear’s paper, to what extent can graphical feedback from a ‘rainbow diagram’ help students develop coherence in their academic writing?, analyses the role of an automated writing system in higher education. openessayist aims to provide immediate textual and graphical feedback to students using a ‘rainbow diagram’ or visual representation of the writing process. building on previous research, the study involved 13 doctoral students in interviews and an eye-tracking application explored their gaze on a rainbow diagram arising from their own writing. findings suggest that the approach can provide a valuable tool to help students understand coherence and the structure of academic writing. anita suleman, philemon chigeza and jo mensinga’s paper, a scoping review and thematic analysis of mentoring models that include leadership and school connectedness theories, aims to fill several gaps in the research on peer-to-peer mentoring in leadership programmes in australia. using a scoping review, the paper evaluates research during the period 2010 to 2020 by adopting a thematic approach focusing on peer support and peer relationships, school connectedness, well-being, and transition and leadership in the private or independent sector. findings suggest that a future research agenda should explore several interconnected themes such as peer-to-peer mentoring, leadership and school and peer connectedness, and analyse overlooked participant groups such as disadvantaged or vulnerable children, as well as indigenous populations. musarurwa david chinofunga, philemon chigeza and subhashni taylor’s paper, senior high school mathematics subjects in queensland: options and trends of student participation, provides a detailed quantitative study of senior queensland students’ (year 11 and 12) participation in calculus and noncalculus-based mathematics from 2010 to 2019. identifying trends in student participation, the paper addresses several gaps in the existing research literature by including a range of variables such as type of schools, location, gender, indigenous or nonindigenous, residence status and the different types of options available. findings highlight several areas of imbalance in the current provision of mathematics, and the study calls for future research on the topic that explores questions relating to gender and mathematics in australian schools. in the final paper, “how difficult can it be?” a nonindigenous ‘asian’ australian high school teacher’s asiancrit autoethnographic account of dealing with racial injustice, aaron teo investigates how australia’s colonial past continues to impact on its education system. drawing on critical race theory (crt), teo explores the lived experience of early career teachers from asian backgrounds, who have typically been marginalised from research in the field. teo’s powerful autoethnographic account examines his own identity as a migrant ‘asian’ australian high school teacher and highlights the importance of ‘re/addressing the dearth of minority (teacher) voices in the literature’. while the seven papers collected in this special edition represent only a snapshot of the many research studies presented at the doctoral conference, they nevertheless demonstrate the quality and depth of the contributions that were made and are testimony to the resilience and determination of the postgraduate students involved. the editors would like to thank the journal and its anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and support during the reviewing and production process. https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/415 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/415 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/415 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/448 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/448 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/448 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/446 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/446 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/446 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/465 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/465 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/465 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/465 prism (2022) thomas, goulding & patrick (2022) prism 3 4(1) 2. disclosure statement the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 3. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism journal prism volume 5. issue 1 (2023) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 97 © 2023 prism, issn: 2514-5347 constructions of space: exploring photographic images in forest school angela garden school of education, liverpool john moores university, uk (a.s.garden@ljmu.ac.uk) received: 23/12/2021 accepted for publication: 24/01/2023 published: 09/03/2023 abstract this research builds on the recently published paper (garden, 2022c), which explored through interviews the use of ipads as cameras to enhance forest school practice. children’s perspectives of the forest school space captured what was important to them on camera (garden, 2022c). working with the same group of 32 key stage 2 children selected from two uk primary schools, the research explored the images captured on ipad cameras during the follow-on session. the unstructured interviews explored the children’s feelings and meanings associated with the images captured in the forest school space using interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa). the photographs can be understood within the themes of ‘play with technology’, ‘soft fascination’ and ‘place attachment’, all of which are inherent in the forest school ethos. suggestions for future research include reflections on the ways the capturing of images of forest school can encourage peer collaboration whilst considering the relative influence of space. keywords: forest school, photographs, outdoors, children, space 1. introduction ever forest schools in the uk can be examined in terms of their conceptualisations of space. forest school arguably is the product of interrelations with multiplicity and space as co-constitutive (massey, 1995), that is, both can have casual powers over each other as space is always under construction. a coconstructive understanding acknowledges a relational dynamic between the children and the inhabitation of the forest space. participants are coconstructed as social actors in a variety of ways. in an increasingly technological age, photography can provide an alternative way to explore and engage with nature (shakespear, varghese and morris 2020). this study examines the ways in which children view the ‘constructed’ space of forest school and how this is captured through the camera lens of an ipad through unstructured interviews around the subsequent printed photographs. the term ‘forest school’ has accorded status in the uk over the past 25 years as part of a broader interest in outdoor learning (cudworth and lumber, 2021). there is a culture of the increasing commodification of forest school and undertaking forest school training may not necessarily mean the development of deep and reflexive practice (ord and leather, 2011). a key influence seems to have been concern over the lack of child exposure to outdoor experiences and with the natural world (louv, 2005) and the overriding assumption that children are separated from nature and must seek to reconnect. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:a.s.garden@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8055-6962 prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 98 5(1) the term ‘nature deficit disorder’ attempts to capture the challenges associated with children’s lack of exposure to the outdoors and nature (louv, 2005). forest school is underpinned by the philosophy of child-initiated, child-led, and intrinsically motivated activity (forest school association (fsa), 2019). there is a cultural and context specificity to louv’s discourse about the nature of human relationships. louv’s nature-deficit disorder theory was only centred on one forest conservation education programme (dickinson, 2013). nature deficit disorder fails to consider deeper cultural influences and emotional expression as a non-traditional communication practice (garden, 2022c). udeskole (meaning outdoors) or learning outside the classroom are inspired by the scandinavian approach to early years’ education. there is a focus on ‘place’ for learning in the early years. forest school has expanded to include older age groups and children who have additional needs (skar, gundersen, and o’brien, 2016). natural play, woodland culture, land rights and child-centred learning all seem to fall under the forest school umbrella (cree & mccree, 2012). wider international discourses from scandinavian approaches to outdoor education have taken on a distinct approach, largely due to cultural tendencies that foreground outdoor activities, such as ‘friluftsliv’ (fresh-air life) in norway (henderson & vikander, 2007). ‘forest pedagogy’, emerging from the skogsmulle school and the following ‘in rain and shine’ early years' movement in sweden have encouraged the outdoor initiatives and a strong connection with the natural environment. similar initiatives emerged across scandinavia, such as metsamoori in finland and åbørns pædagogik in denmark (cree & mccree, 2012). whilst there is ideally a child-led approach to outdoor learning influenced through scandinavian approaches to forest school, the focus is often on meeting the curriculum needs, creating tensions with the extent to which sessions are structured (early years foundation stage (eyfs), 2021). biesta, allan & edwards (2013) argue that a child-led approach to learning encourages greater engagement from the children and richer learning opportunities. forest school practitioners often view the sessions as encouraging holistic development, but they may struggle with the concept of taking a step back and observing, compared to their usual pedagogy of adult-directed teaching (garden, 2022b). forest school providers can be overly concerned with practical activities, with many forest school practitioners carrying out activities such as digging, den building, whittling and fire lighting (leather, 2018), activities that are not necessarily underpinned by conceptual meaning. these arguments assume a curriculum-based approach to learning rather than the traditional skills-based activities that forest schools are arguably based upon. schools such as udeskole integrate outdoor learning and integration of assessment and evaluation, curriculum coverage and timetabling are less challenging. the responsibility lies with the teacher to identify the areas of learning in udeskole that would benefit from being taught outside the classroom (kelly, 2014). within this study, i consider the use of ipad cameras within the natural environment and specifically how photographs captured in a previous forest school session can encourage children and practitioners to engage in conversations around outdoor spaces. the normalising of technology in the outdoor space may for outdoor educators, start to become as ‘normal’ as walking boots and compasses (hills and thomas, 2019) if we support the notion of normalised technology (wattchow, 2001). technology has been used outdoors for several years in a general sense (rogers, 2019), such as clothing, walking boots, compasses and even fire as examples of technology (hills and thomas, 2019). 2. forest school as a constructed space our systematic literature review of forest school research (garden and downes, 2021) identified the forest school conceptual space within three distinct contexts, that is, early years, special education needs and disability, and formal education. our conceptual map highlights these distinct themes: prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 99 5(1) figure 1: garden and downes (2021) forest school conceptual space new and existing spaces may emerge through an examination of interactions between children, adults, and artefacts and allow us to explore hybrid spaces constituted by both classrooms and forest schools (garden and downes, 2021). this research considers new learning spaces offering children new opportunities to explore away from the structure, social dynamics, norms, and expectations of the classroom; the integration of ipads within this new environment acts as an additional micro context. the physical layout of structures such as forest school may have defined borders consisting of walls and railings. the micro context of forest school (peacock, 2011) can be described as the physical layout of the fire circle logs, the pathways, the positioning of the trees or plants, the size of the group, presence of adults, opportunities for group discussions around the fire circle, the balance between child-initiated and teacher-initiated learning, objects available to support the activities and background noise that may cause distractions. i challenge for a dualism in relation to the field of outdoor education with differing perspectives that argue for excluding technology and those that argue for its inclusion. there is increasing interest in taking digital technologies outdoors (garden, 2022c) with forest schools (and other forms of outdoor education) aiming to provide an alternative setting to the indoor classroom. learning outdoors often has less structure than the classroom environment and increases the physical space around children. holloway & mahan (2012) explore forest schools as an alternative learning space and the increase in the use of outdoor education spaces in primary schools in england. space is not just conceptualised as a physical outdoor space. a metaphorical idea of space can be presented where different practices are permitted such as the use of technology within nature (garden, 2022b). massey (2005) explored the intersections between space, relations of power and identity. an outdoor learning space provides new opportunities for children and teachers to interact with forest school leaders and children co-creating a learning environment in which the boundaries are re-defined beyond that of the classroom environment (harris, 2018). the trees, paths and fire circle in forest school exist as a place but one that is continually being recreated and may change and adapt (garden and downes, 2021). forest schools can be seen as a ‘third space’ (bhabha, 2012) that exists beyond the highly ritualised spaces that constitute classrooms in which deformalised spaces of collaboration and culturesharing exist for the children (olson, 2016). the outdoors as a learning space can be associated with norms of behaviour, objectives, and goals for learning (peacock, 2011) and practices such as rules around the fire circle and routines for the start and finish of sessions. this means that the new learning spaces of forest school provides different contexts and environments for children’s learning. forest school can be conceptualised as a community of practice with expectations of behaviour. forest schools ideally promote curiosity and creativity enhancing the ability of children to use all five senses (dabaja, 2021) as they are underpinned by the philosophy of child-initiated, child-led and intrinsically self-motivated learning activities. this focus on play-pedagogy is often viewed as an alternative to the structured classroom environment but it can also complement traditional classroom teaching, particularly for key stage 2 children. harris (2017) argues that the outdoor environment encourages a freer learning space in terms of norms and expectations for behaviour with less need to suppress energy or noise than in the classroom. 3. play ‘away’ from technology the work of richard louv, whose last child in the woods (2010) states that children are suffering from ‘nature deficit disorder’ and that emotional connection to nature increases psychological and https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2015.1073098?scroll=top&needaccess=true&instname=liverpool+john+moores+university prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 100 5(1) physical health. louv (2005) suggested that children are spending less time outdoors. this can impact on their physical, emotional, and mental development. ‘nature-deficit disorder’ (louv, 2005: 136) describes a child disconnect from nature and that exposure to nature is vital for learning and creativity. it is argued that nature-deficit disorder contributes to reduced senses, lower attention, obesity and higher rates of emotional and physical issues, and an epidemic of inactivity. significant groups of children spend little time outdoors in natural environments (hunt, burt and stewart, 2015). reasons may include digital technology in play; less play opportunities; increased urbanisation of the population; and increased risk aversion and safety fears among parents. conversely, there is a growing sense of urgency concerning global environmental problems such as climate change and biodiversity decline (harris, 2021) and an engagement with and understanding of the natural world is important if children are to be aware of environmental issues (zylstra, knight, esler and le grange, 2014; beery and wolf-watz, 2014). if children do not experience nature, they may not be concerned about its potential loss (harris, 2021). forest school can be viewed as an ‘unplugged’ space in contrast to the fact that technology has become part of our everyday lived experience (hills and thomas, 2019). for most children and adults, it would be rare to go a single day without engaging in some form of digital technology. in many ways this has impacted in how childhood is currently shaped and constructed. advancements in technology such as the use of video games or tablets may contribute to children spending less time engaging in outdoor nature play (garden, 2002b). the concern is that digital technology may place a barrier between the learner and the outdoor environment as it prevents a direct experience with the natural world and negatively impact on children’s face-to-face communication (thomas and munge, 2017; coates & pimlott-wilson, 2018). key concerns around the integration of technology into the forest school space seem to centre around distraction to the child. the child may be distracted and lose interest in nature and the usual outdoor experiential activities (wattchow & brown, 2011). however, hills and thomas (2019) state that digital technology can undermine the aim of being outdoors, but it can also provide additional learning experiences. the use of ipads for outdoor learning is not without debate. van kraalingen’s (2021) review of 33 articles on the use of mobile technology in outdoor learning emphasise the portability and accessibility of technology offering new learning opportunities. however, other studies highlight the complexity of their use, online safety, and a diminishing of the quality of experiential learning. affordance theory first proposed by gibson (1977) illustrates both positive and negatives from the use or non-use of digital technology within the constructs of technological determinism and social constructivism. for gibson, affordances were a precondition for activity in that they define potential allowable actions between an environment or object, and the person. gibson (1977) argues that affordances in a digital environment are the opportunities that the environment offers the learning process in that they may facilitate or impede learning. however, it must be recognised that technology is purely a tool and that it can also create opportunities to enhance outdoor learning experiences (garden and downes, 2021). if forest school or outdoor learning in general is viewed as an opportunity to draw children ‘away’ from technology and into ‘nature’ then it can be argued that digital technology can undermine the aim of being outdoors. this study explores how the images captured represent the children’s construction of the space of forest school. the importance of pedagogically appropriate technology within outdoor settings should be highlighted, as technology on its own may not bring educational benefits unless they are integrated in a way that brings specific teaching and learning purposes (schleicher, 2015). for example, digital technology can more fully engage and connect learners with both the outdoors and each other (bolliger & shepherd, 2017) if learners find and take pictures of specific plants and then reflect upon and sharing these images with their peers (hills and thomas, 2019). other concerns centre around the use of digital technology in the outdoors, or more specifically in forest school, is the barrier that it places between the learner and the outdoor environment. french (2016) suggests that technology https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14729679.2019.1604244 prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 101 5(1) may be seen as a third party with technology creating a barrier between the child and the natural world. these arguments may suggest that digital technology can create both opportunities and threats within the forest school or outdoor learning environment. 4. methodology research design phenomenological research describes the essence of a phenomenon as it is explored it from the standpoint of those experiencing it in terms of both what was experienced and how it was experienced (neubauer, witkop and varpio, 2019). the hermeneutic phenomenological research approach was adopted in this study to focus on the participants’ lived experiences through the photographs. by combining the reported experience of the pupils, including their understanding of the role digital technology played in that experience the study sought to reach an understanding of how capturing images influences and shapes learning in forest schools. the phenomenological research design thus focused on integrating the subjective judgements of the children and researcher to generate a new perspective on the role of digital technology in outdoor learning. ipa assesses the experiences and feelings of individuals exposed to various phenomena and is based on phenomenological, hermeneutic, and idiographic research philosophies (rajasinghe et al. (2019). there is value in focusing on how people perceive an event or experience and how sense of the world through capturing images on photographs. the potential pitfalls inherent in the phenomenological research can be broadly described under ‘subjectivity’, that is achieving validity (whether the research methods lead to data that support the conclusions the research draws from it) (bell & waters, 2018). it is impossible to guarantee whether similar data and results would have been achieved at a different time, or with a different set of pupils or in another location. in addition, there is a danger of bias in phenomenological research, particularly when working alone, as conclusions may fit a predetermined opinion and the challenge of presenting the data in a format which both makes sense and illustrates key findings. unstructured interviews were conducted as the main research method to collect personal experiences from the children as the researcher was keen to capture the child’s voice. the unstructured interviews were based around the physical photographs taken by the children in the previous session. the questions allowed the researcher to both ask an unplanned question on the experiences of the participants and to follow-up their answers. the duration of the interviews was on average 5 minutes per photograph. the analysis sought to reach an understanding of how the images represent what is important to the children in the space. participants the participants of the research were 32 children from two local primary schools in england who took part in the first study (garden, 2022c). the children were first recruited via emails sent to the parents of the selected children. the parents issued their informed consent, and the children confirmed their agreement to participate in the second-part study and interview process. the children's names were converted to pseudonyms to protect their identities (data protection act 1998) with the interview data only using the first letter of each name. all photographs were included with full parental and child permissions. the participant information sheet, consent form and the letter to the children all made the children aware of their right to withdraw. bera (2018) ethical guidelines for research state that participants have the right to withdraw from research without explanation (3.1). school 1 school 1 was small uk primary school, with a demographic of pupils aged between 4 to 10 years from a white, british background of lower-thanaverage socio-economic status. school 1 delivered a forest school programme of 6 sessions for each class half-termly for a full day of activities supervised by qualified forest school practitioners. 16 pupils (10 girls and 6 boys) from school 1 agreed to participate in the interviews with the parents providing written consent. prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 102 5(1) school 2 school 2 was bigger than an average primary school with a wealthier catchment area and a demographic of pupils aged between 4 to 8 years from a white, british background. school 2 was directly responsible for guiding the children through the outdoor learning activities since the sessions took place in the woodlands owned by the school, located approximately 5 miles away. 16 children (8 girls and 8 boys) agreed to participate in the unstructured interviews with the parents providing written consent. the difference in the demographic of the samples enhances the diversity of the data capturing experiences of participants from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. data analysis the unstructured interviews enabled interviewees to elaborate or provide further information. this complemented the constructionist epistemology of capturing participant experiences, with the capacity to respond freely. photographs as a starting point for conversations was highlighted by o’connor and wyatt (2004:6) in which photographs were regarded as ‘conversational reflections’. the digital environment produces a means for presenting the images critical to this study. the duration of the individual unstructured interview around each individual photograph was on average 5 minutes and conducted within the forest school sessions; the interviews were audio-recorded and later transcribed. children had previously been directed to take photos of the forest school (garden, 2022c) but had freedom over what to photograph; they reflected on their own ‘key’ photograph selected at the end of the previous session. this follow-on study involved their previously selected ‘key’ printed photograph hung around the forest school area from tree branches as a provocation for conversations. the key question was open-ended to enable the researcher to ask unplanned questions to in response to participant answers. the unstructured interview question was ‘tell me about your photograph’. follow-up questions included ‘what do you like about the photograph?’ and ‘how is the image important to you?’ the study employed interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa) in evaluating the data collected from the unstructured interviews. there were 5 steps to data analysis (groenewald, 2004): 1. bracketing and phenomenological reduction – the researcher becomes familiar with the words used in the interview responses by listening several times to the recording of each interview. this identifies the unique characteristics of each participant’s experiences. to reduce the influence of the researcher’s interpretations on interviewees’ responses, the researcher aimed to maintain an objective mindset when analysing the recordings. 2. defining the units of meaning in the data the second step elucidated the data collected through identifying interviewee accounts that referred specifically to the photographic constructions of the forest school space. the recurring responses were attributed with the same code to establish the credibility of the study. 3. grouping of themes the researcher created themes based on the similarities and connections between them (pietkiewitcz & smith, 2012) through listening to the recording of each interview several times and cross-checking it with the factors identified in step 1. 4. revision of the themes the researcher reviewed the themes and renamed some of the themes to reflect the content. sub-themes were revised to accurately represent the interviewees’ responses to increase the accuracy of the data collected. 5. development of a summary after completion of previous steps, the researcher undertook a final check to ensure that themes reflected the views of the interviewees. the development of the themes was a summary of the content. the researcher was able to explain how the capture of the images in the photographs shaped an understanding of constructions of forest school (noon, 2018). 5. outcomes and discussion ipa identified three interconnecting themes: nature connectedness, a focus on space and place attachment. each theme had a defining set of prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 103 5(1) characteristics and are considered important as they appeared in the data most frequently across the 32 unstructured interviews. the themes were connected by the forest school ethos (fsa, 2019), which is grounded in constructivist approaches to learning, a child-led process whereby the forest school leader shapes the sessions to the needs of the participant with socialisation and conversation integral to the learning process. nature connectedness nature connectedness is an individual’s sense of their relationship with the natural world moving beyond just having contact with nature. as a measurable psychological construct, levels of emotional connection towards and feelings of being a part of the natural world, has long been linked to environmental behaviours (hughes, richardson and lumber, 2018; mayer and frantz, 2004). smith, dunhill and scott (2018) investigated the ways in which forest schools provide children with opportunities to develop positive attitudes towards the environment. they found that children demonstrated increased knowledge about nature and the environment as one of the most frequently reported outcomes of forest school. it is often proposed that a connection to nature can be developed through time spent in the outdoors particularly during childhood (chawla and derr, 2012; mayer and frantz, 2004). however, an exanimation of the conditions necessary to create a strong connection with nature seem to be lacking. within this study the photographs captured items in nature that were important or interesting to the children hence highlighting nature connectedness: “i like the colour of this (yellow) flower. we’ve got to look after our forest school by making sure we don’t pull up any flowers. it’s ok to take photographs of them though.” (phoebe, age 10) “i like to know which tree each leaf comes from. i took this photograph so that i can remember to check later.” (ryan, age 9) “this leaf in my photograph is from a sycamore tree. i like its shape.” (dean, age 9) “this is a centipede. you can tell by its shape and number of legs.” (macy, age 7) figure 2: centipede “i took a photo of this worm, but i put him back in his home afterwards. he lives over there in that hole with the other worms.” (rachel, age 8) figure 3: worm this is reflected in the research reported by knight (2016) and slade, lowery and bland, 2013) when parents also reported that their child had learnt about animals and trees and were able to name trees and animals. additionally, turtle, convery, and convery (2015) investigated the development of proenvironmental attitudes following participation in forest school, specifically addressing the idea that through taking part in long-term forest school activities, children would develop long-term prosocial environmental attitudes. other conversations highlighted the children’ developing pro-social attitudes because of attending forest school: prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 104 5(1) “i took a photo of crisp packets and plastic bottles that i had collected from the soil. i placed them in the recycling bin afterwards as they’re not good for environment.” joe, age 8 “this leaf looks very dry in my photo. rain is needed for plants to thrive.” sarah, age 7 “bees live in our forest school. it was hard to capture one in a photo, but i managed. i used to be scared of bees but now i know how good they are for the flowers.” ryan, age 9 figure 4: bee environmental education for all children is even more important than in previous generations due to increasing societal concerns related to environmental issues, such as anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss (steffen et al., 2015). children are now more likely to recognise that human activities are responsible for our impact on the ecosystems as linked to sustainability and accountability for world. it also increases the likelihood that society will be able to achieve more sustainable ways of living (frantz and mayer, 2014). kolb expands this dual notion of transaction and links this to piaget’s (1951, 1971) notion of assimilation and accommodation (kolb, 1984) where the key to learning lies in the mutual interaction of the process of accommodation of concepts or schemas to experience in the world and the process of assimilation of events or experiences from the world into existing concepts or schemas (p.23): “this is a leaf from a birch tree. i have learnt the names of different types of trees in forest school.” (dean, age 9) “we did some digging here so that we could plant bulbs. i like to come back each week to see how they are growing.” (maltida, age 8) figure 5: growing from bulbs for kolb (1984) the tension between accommodation and assimilation, that is, the degree to which the individual is changed by the environment and the extent to which the environment is changed by the individual is the contradiction at the heart of experiential learning. a change in the environment reconceptualises how we see the environment or the ‘world’ as much as an actual physical change in it. participants are changed because of the outdoor education experience but so is the world, or perhaps how we both perceive and conceive of it as changed (leather, 2018). 6. a focus on space forest in this study, space was considered not only in terms of the physical aspects of outdoor space but as the metaphorical idea of space where different behaviours are permitted, and spaces in the curriculum (harris, 2017). shakespear, varghese and morris (2020) in their canadian ‘focus on nature’ programme found in the children’s nature photographs that they can view the space literally for example living, non-living, dead or human-made things; symbolically for example representing other https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2020.1856790 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2020.1856790 prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 105 5(1) things or prior experiences; or as dynamic and static entities. the concept of soft fascination is the distinctive visual characteristics make viewing natural scenes more fascinating than viewing built scenes (valtchanov & ellard, 2015). exploring the reasoning behind this contributes to a more effective design of urban green space making optimal use of its healthsupporting ingredients. the photos captured through the ipads were through the perspectives of ‘soft fascination’ in nature (valtchanov & ellard, 2015). hughes, richardson & lumber (2018) found that nature connectedness captures that relationship between people and the rest of nature. the visual complexity of nature as natural environments may be the trigger for soft fascination as nature tends to have intermediate levels of visual complexity. these intermediate levels may attract attention in a moderate, pleasant way such as capturing nature through the ipad camera in this study. in contrast most human-made environments evoke hard fascination or lack in visual complexity and therefore do not capture the attention of the child. the photographs in this study considered of closeups of insects or different perspectives such as the view of the sky: “look at my photo. you can see all the spiders’ legs close-up. i think this spider has eight legs. i found it crawling along the branch of that tree” (luna, age 10) “look at the way the camera captured the clouds in the sky. they look like cotton wool balls.” (clare, age 9) “the trees look so much taller from the angle of my photo. i didn’t realise how tall they looked!” (john, age 8) “i love the way the sun is shining through the branches of the trees. it looks magical.” (emily, age 8) figure 6: sun through the branches “i tried to take a photograph that captured all of our forest school area, but i couldn’t fit it all in.” (ryan, age 10) figure 7: forest school area the borders were different as there are less confines than in the classroom. this afforded the creation of different spaces. pictures of the sky highlighted the expanse of what can be accessed through the 360 degrees lens. nature was viewed as a space and place that is rich with natural resources; a living space, which is different from the classroom and lacking definitive walls and a ceiling. the outdoor learning, in comparison to a classroom environment, increases the physical space around children (harris, 2017). as kraftl (2013:1) states it is “impossible to divorce social processes from spatial processes”. the prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 106 5(1) learning space for children was not only to do with the physical space but also how it impacts on social organisation within the space: “we like to build our dens in this space. i’ve taken a photograph of our favourite den. we like it as it is hidden in the bushes.” (joe, age 8) “emily and i found coins buried in the soil. it’s our secret treasure. we are buried it again after taking the photograph so that the coins remain in forest school. it means we can play with them next time.” (rachel, age 8) figure 8: digging for treasure the outdoor spaces may be seen as sites where children ‘develop’ as opposed to spaces where children can ‘experience’ whereby breadth of experience is easier to capture within complex environments such as outdoor spaces. taylor, spehar, hägerhäll, & van donkelaar (2011) found fractal geometry useful in describing the visual complexity of natural environments. natural scenes capture the order and structure in natural environments by the recurrence of similar visual information across multiple scale levels as they hold roughly the same number of elements and form as one zooms in and out of the scene. it can be argued that it is almost impossible to set up valid research in outdoor environments to capture cognitive development, whereas experience can be observed directly through the social interactions that occur in outdoor spaces. this was true through the lens of the ipad camera where children were able to ‘experience’ nature whether it was holding a leaf to photograph it or leaning against a tree to hold the ipad up to the sky. place attachment place attachment refers to an emotional bond or meaning and attachment to a particular place or setting (harris, 2021). the child observations noted that the children were keen to capture images that held some importance to them whether it was leaves, insects, trees, flowers or the image of the sky through the tree branches. these may hold particular social or cultural meanings as well as ecological meaning. spiteri, higgins, and nicol (2020) for example found that children often conceptualise nature in different ways including as a place related to their identity. only a few papers so far focus on children’s development of a relationship with the environment through forest school (e.g. cumming and nash, 2015; smith, dunhill, and scott, 2018; turtle, convery, and convery, 2015; harris, 2021). the physical environment can be associated with feelings of secure attachment. the familiar background of the scene (trees, fire circle, pathways) may be comforting and provide a sense of calm promoting the principles of nurture and provide a kind of ritualised routine. the idea of place attachment in children may be feeling love towards nature and how children think about nature, in other words, affective responses to nature (garden, 2022a). dopko, capaldi and zelenski (2019) suggest that nature exposure can foster children's nature connectedness and willingness to perform proenvironmental behaviours with place attachment referring to the positive emotionalcognitive connections. this can also be bonds between a person and the significant places where they live and spend their time (scannell and gifford, 2017). connections to natural environments such as forest schools can be associated with place attachment. the development of emotional and cognitive processes such as resilience can be linked to secure place attachment (chawla, 2015; little and derr, 2018). scannell and gifford (2017) found that individuals can benefit psychologically and experience intrinsic fulfilment from places of attachment that provide them with appreciation of beauty. dopko, capaldi and zelenski (2019) highlight the emotional benefits of time spent outdoors for children and may also promote pro-social behaviours. the development of ties with places in positive ways may encourage prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 107 5(1) children to learn about the environment and therefore protect places that are important to them: “i love this place. i like to hide behind that bush as it is quite hidden. i look forward to coming here every week.” (michael, age 9) “i make dens in that space. it’s my special place. it’s pretty cool.” (joshua, age 8) “this is our special hiding place. we made a fairy den in there and decorated it with sticks and leaves form the forest school.” (kate, age 9) figure 9: den building “this is my gardening area. i’ve been growing daffodils and i like to see how they are doing when i come back each week.” (chloe, age 9) “that’s my area to dig. my buried treasure is there.” (ryan, age 9) figure 10: area to dig within harris’s (2021) study several of the children similarly felt a sense of ownership to the space. through identification, naming and association of places to activities, forest school becomes a more meaningful environment. the capturing of photographs in the forest school space may help to develop a sense of ownership and concern for the forest school setting (harris, 2021). forest schools are arguably relatively ambiguous in nature providing opportunities for children to negotiate their interactions using processes garnered from a range of experiences, including those from the indoor classroom (garden and downes, 2021). 7. concluding thoughts forest school may encourage a sense of belonging (place attachment) developed by being in nature (harris, 2021) and a sense of belonging to a wider natural community (cudworth and lumber, 2021). there is a need to better understand children’s nature connection and the spatiality of forest school to frame the development of nature connection within a socio-spatial analytic (cudworth and lumber, 2021). a focus on space generates new complexities around the hybrid spaces that are constituted by forest schools as highlighted by our forest school conceptual space figure (garden and downes, 2021: fig1). i argue that forest schools are distinctive spaces, and we need to consider new ways of describing forest schools and their value to those who engage with them. such notions of new spaces as distinctive of, but complementary to, existing educational spaces are not new. the emergence of digital technologies has necessitated a similar approach when considering their affordances within the education context (potter & mcdougall, 2017). a ‘third space’ (potter & mcdougall, 2017, p. 37) and the interconnectedness of different learning spaces across various domains. john dewey’s theory of experiential education (1916/2007, 1938/1997) sought to understand the outdoor education experience as a lived experience drawing on dewey’s original ideas of meaning making out of experience. dewey (1938/1997: 43) refers to “trying” and “undergoing”, with trying as the outward expression of the individual, the attempts by them to within the environment and undergoing as the ways in which the environment impacts upon the individual. a dynamic and two-way process, the interaction involves an prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 108 5(1) impact on the environment by the individual and an impact on the individual by the environment. digital technology within outdoor experiential learning such as forest school, can consist of a range of devices such as ipads, digital cameras, tablets, smartphones, augmented reality and so on. digital technology, such as a gps device, may enhance and create additional opportunities in outdoor experiential learning through children to navigating using a map and compass; providing accurate location feedback (thomas & munge, 2017). technology can involve the promotion of health, wellbeing, and proenvironmental behaviours. technology has now become vital to maintain social, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual wellbeing for children in ways that it was not previously. technology may now support children’s wellbeing as opposed to socially isolating them. this article sought to consider the possibilities of capturing the forest space through a camera lens and the affordances it provides for children to fully explore pedagogical possibilities, whilst engaging in the outdoors. forest school may encourage children towards pro-environmental behaviours as highlighted in this study. engagement with nature is a key outcome (harris, 2017). the forest space is in many ways constructed as an ‘escape’, a space away from the classroom, away from technology, away from the pressures of everyday life and the outside world. space and time were managed and constructed differently. whilst being a distraction from outdoor experiential learning experiences, digital technology also provides opportunities to enhance learning (hills and thomas, 2019). it is perhaps important to consider a move away from the narrative of a ‘demonisation’ of technology and view technology as a tool; a tool which practitioners have a responsibility to manage appropriately within the setting through scaffolding of activities (vygotsky, 1978). whilst spaces can exist antagonistically with one another, usually defined by rigid impenetrable borders, many exist in affiliation (bhabha, 2012). we argue that the ‘gateway’ into forest school is an important moment of transition from one place (usually a school) to another. in forest schools, this gateway is usually symbolised using a fire circle. this is where the context for the forest school space is created through establishing who will say what and when, who will have control over what, and general rules about how to move around and interact with the space. the continuity with connected spaces, for example, the classroom can therefore be established. the more the gateway references classroom rules, practices, and roles, the greater the continuity; the fewer references there are, the more discrete the space becomes. the ideal is a blend of both: a connection with other spaces so that forest schools become meaningful in these contexts, and disconnection, leading to forest schools becoming distinctive spaces (garden and downes, 2021). nature was viewed as a space and place that is rich with natural resources; a living space, which is different from the classroom and often definitive walls and certainly a ceiling. pictures of the sky taken through the lens of the ipad camera highlighted the expanse of what can be accessed through the 360 degrees lens. harris (2021) found that the move away from ceilings and walls that confine children towards an outdoor space meant children were more likely to be able to express themselves. this study suggests that trees and forest settings may be relatively fascinating and restorative types of nature with technology fully engaging and connecting the learner with both the expanse of the outdoors (looking up) and each other. bollinger and shepherd (2017) investigated children taking pictures of specific plants, reflecting upon them, and sharing these images with their peers. this research, whilst small scale, is a unique view of children’s perceptions of the space described as ‘forest school’. further research is needed to continue exploring the benefits of the capturing images through photographs. further training may be useful for primary school teachers and forest school leaders on the more intuitive ways in which cameras, ipads or other technologies might be used in the outdoor space. there is the need for all primary schools to consider the outdoor space as an effective pedagogy. teacher educators should encourage teachers to interact with children while they are using devices or playing outdoors (deaver & wright, 2018; donohue & schomburg, 2017). wolfe and flewitt (2010) discuss the limited training for staff working with children in early childhood education and care prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 109 5(1) (ece) on how to support children to use technologies effectively and purposefully. within ece in the england, more digital resources needed to engage children fully and appropriately with technological experiences and expertise (fleer, 2017). the primary schools in this study were committed an outdoor play-pedagogy in their school. future research could focus on the processes that forest school leaders use to make decisions about their use of digital technologies such as cameras and the ways in which they could be meaningfully integrated into the conceptual space of forest school (massey, 2005). 8. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2023) garden (2023) prism 110 5(1) 10. references bhabha, h.k. 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abstract this paper builds on my previous work in this journal (hafiz, 2017) on the potentialities of prosociality as a remedy and response to widespread precarity. the aim is to ground prosociality in co-operative social and educational practices rooted in the conscientisation of social and solidarity economy. pedagogical practices based on principles of solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability can be directed to the production of knowledge (and its associated benefits) in order to meet the basic needs of food, energy, housing, energy production, social caring and well-being in general. this paper deepens the account of prosociality by treating it as a means for cooperation to produce social infrastructures that have a protective function. these infrastructures provide important underpinnings of a universal basic security to be delivered through a social and solidarity economy. i illustrate this from precarity in higher education in the north-west of england with particular reference to the widening participation agenda. this enables me to extend the previous analysis by linking it to the sociospatial complexities of class in higher education and precarity. specifically, i argue that class differences should be analysed in relation to a differential relationship to the interrelated variables of global dependence – glocal potential that interact with the generative mechanisms of precarity. 1. introduction1 this paper presents a taxonomy of precarity-security as a heuristic device to explore and critically interrogate recent classifications of occupational class in britain. it proposes that class stratification has important sociospatial aspects and is determined by the technical and 1 i would like to acknowledge the assistance of distinguished professor bob jessop, cultural political economy research centre, lancaster university. this article is the result of discussions about key themes presented in this paper. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 83 social division of labour in the local economy. this more comprehensive analysis allows for finer-grained analysis that highlights the multidimensional, intersectional nature of inequalities. this can provide guidelines for a critical education for precarity in the university environment. the co-creation of social value and non-ownership social infrastructure may protect undergraduates from crisis-induced and social-relational precarity through radical post-politics and self-organisation. key principles for delivering this project include a commitment to social value production, non-ownership shared resources and social infrastructure through social co-operation, social production, the social economy, crowd funding, the gift economy and social giving. it is suggested that it is the circulatory patterns of precarity-security that significantly determine undergraduates’ ability to plan for the future hence the extent to which they can experience genuine social stability and continuing security over the life course. this analysis enables practitioners to imagine a critical education for precarity that integrates class as a crucial factor in precarity-security into critical pedagogical practice. social classes have a dual relevance in social analysis. on the one hand, they are often opaque and complex emergent products of objective social relations of exploitation and domination. on the other, they are constructs that shape lived experience and identity formation (reay, crozier and clayton, 2010), providing grids or interpretive frames. ‘low participation neighbourhood’ or ‘working class’ identity connotes particular antagonisms, values to be upheld and restrictions to be removed (featherstone and griffin, 2016; gillborn, 2010). in terms of class and education, the aforementioned authors provide a ‘standing out’ and ‘fitting in’ framework of analysis for working class student identities. the heterogeneity of working-class students is complex and there are many variations. however, class action in the learning environment must recognise a differential disadvantage based on differing levels of resources and support pre-and-post university. the experience of northern undergraduates is one of being a ‘fish out of water’ among a prevalence of ‘laidback learners’ (reay et al., p. 119). clearly, the working-class experience in higher education involves the student learning new ways of being and making sense of their experiences. to acknowledge class difference in education is to presuppose (rightly or wrongly) that students from other ‘classes’ come to university with desirable forms of social and cultural capital, which favour class mobility because they mirror, anticipate or prefigure the prestige and status of particular prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 84 jobs and social positions into new occupations and work identities in the knowledge-based economy. this makes higher education an important vector of promoting equality and mobilizing diversity and helps us make sense of the recent outcry over institutional racism in the curriculum and the academy (bouattia, 2015; bhopal, 2017). race and class can seldom be separated without distinguishing between minority and white members of the working class. this is especially salient in the former industrial towns in nw england and pennine lancashire which comprises of a number of towns where the ‘excluded’ are constituted on the basis of ethnicity and/or socio-economic circumstances. all universities face the risks of pathologising particular class identity types, whether through government policy or through pedagogical practice. class action in education has been valorised as promoting social mobility through lifelong learning (leitch, 2006). it is argued here that in the contemporary moment political action towards an evening out of class disadvantage is limited to barriers to entry. in order to include class as a basis of critical pedagogy we need to acknowledge social relational difference and act against prevailing conditions that do not promote a prolonged and continuous insecurity over the life-course. despite decades of policy designed to widen participation, social inequality in education achievement actually worsened in the uk during the 1980s and early 1990s (chowdry et al, 2010) and in recent times, drop-out, degree completion and degree class depends far more on the human capital available at the time of joining university (crawford, 2014). certainly, the barriers to entry have been somewhat equalised through student loans (hesa, 2018), but pre-existing social and cultural capital remain key determinants of translating a degree qualification into wage-security/wage-adequacy. maintaining equality in the opportunities to acquire a higher qualification rely on favourable economic conditions and welfare support networks over the life-course pre-andpost-university. more and more high skilled work does not provide wage-security/wageadequacy and therefore this work is not able to defer precarity due to pre-existing student debt. at the same time, shifts in welfare policy and labour markets are creating further insecurity for graduates. to cope with economic crisis is an essential survival skill in complex, networked societies that experience rapid and unpredictable social and economic interactions, mediated through economic policy and networked social relations. this calls for a conscientisation of structural vulnerabilities based on examining how the global-local are prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 85 interacting with the local sphere and exploring potential responses through place-andnetwork based action for social production. this requires solidaristic and prosocial modes of thinking and behaving that inform cultural practices of co-operative exchange, social value production, non-ownership shared resources and social infrastructures. social class relations can have different spatio-temporal depth, breadth, and horizons of calculation: from the longue durée of path-dependent historical legacies to short-term or momentary conjunctures, from local to global, and from short-term tactics to long-term transformative strategic goals. we need to consider all aspects to make sense of the objective sedimentation and tendencies in social stratification and to understand how subjective orientations relate to them. in summary, class remains a central sociological concept in the analysis of how difference poses particular challenges to outcomes-equality in the classroom, and is salient for the classification and understanding of the dynamics of social class in the 21st century. class continues to provide the analytical tools to observe social change in established solidarities and new identities (savage et al., 2013; wright, 2014). there can be important and politically significant disjunctions between the objective and subjective dimensions of class relations. at the level of subjective sense-and-meaningmaking, class and cognate terms provide shape to individual subjectivities and identities. on the one hand, a working-class identity is not always adopted and valorised in terms of earnings and assets; on the other, some actors may be unaware of class relations or, at least, disconnected from a concrete class identity for themselves. others have proposed new forms of ‘precariat’ class and new forms of class struggle or ‘digital rebellion’ (standing, 2011; wolfson, 2014). this provides the opportunity for social organisation of disparate identities into a political force for action against social conditions in the university environment. if occupational classification exemplifies social class and this is the basis for thinking about inequalities, then we exclude all those who do not fit into work type classifications and exclude those that may be outside the limitations of the employment relationship, e.g., the elite, a precariat underclass. new forms of classification of social class (e.g., savage et al., 2013) go further in describing and quantifying the characteristics of a particular social class, for instance, income and cultural capital. however, both occupational class and income-based classifications do not clarify the social conditions associated with each of the classes. approximate distinctions made on the basis of income, jobs, education, location, cultural prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 86 capital and proportion of the population in the categorisation of social class need to be contextualised with further contributions to each classification in alternative scalar horizons, e.g., global-glocal. there is not enough space here to enter deeply into the sociospatial nuances of inequality, except to note that the use of income and wealth as the primary indicators for progress is a myopic approach (therborn, 2017). the north atlantic and eurozone crises have impacted on social class structure through the structural shifts in occupations (cf., the uk commission for employment and skills, 2014) that have precipitated income uncertainty for graduates. in classical class analysis (e.g., marx, weber) the focus is on the capital-labour relation and, for weber, on status differences too. the lens is that of employment as (in)security and the basis of bargaining power or resistant-self-organisation. their analysis documents social change in the social structure and class division as the industrial age in britain was unravelling through its colonial interactions and the modernisation of society in general. for marx, there was a sense that the world was getting smaller as transportation, communication and other technologies of capitalist economic practices became essential for trade and work. today, we have learning and communication technology to enable the transfer of knowledge, economic, social and cultural goods across distances, and establish networked solidarities. in britain, class analysis requires an analysis of the influence and power of the british elite, exploring differences in political involvement across the uk and subjective understandings of political efficacy and, subjective feelings of influence (snee and devine, 2015, p. 255). in a university environment such issues can be explored through the practices of a social and solidarity economy. 2. class and pedagogical practice recent social, economic and political trends globally, nationally, regionally and locally make inequality between social groups a grave concern in britain today. a fortiori, this makes class an important analytical in education and highlights the importance of pedagogical practices concerned with the spatial, geographic and social class differences (e.g., giroux, 2002, 2010, 2014). in the british context, clemitshaw (2013) and stevenson (2010), have collectively captured the 21st century moment in the development where the ‘civic discourse has given way to the language of commercialization, privatization, and deregulation and that, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 87 within the language and images of corporate culture, citizenship is portrayed as an utterly privatized affair that produces self-interested individuals’ (giroux, 2002, p. 425). in order to provide security through higher education, practitioners and students collectively must vocabularise and enact a freireian language of possibility, and direct it towards agential potential, using cultural practices for the transformation of theory and practice. it is evident that neoliberalism and the effects of consumerisation of fundamental relations, e.g., higher education as a lifelong pursuit, are deeply rooted in a debt-based higher education system. in places like blackburn, a former industrial working-class community, significant proportions of the population would not identify themselves by class in the traditional sense; of belonging to particular occupations, work-types, family histories and social traditions. race and class are inseparable due to conflictual goals of improvement pursued through the widening participation policy in england. blackburn and many of the surrounding former industrial towns have been subject to decades of governmental action in educational achievement and school improvement at all stages of learning. at the same time the indices of deprivation continue to show that the blackburn with darwen borough is one of 20 local authority districts with the highest proportion of their neighbourhoods in the most deprived 10 per cent of neighbourhoods (department of communities and local government, 2015). in a locality like blackburn access to higher education depends heavily on student finance loans and maintenance loans that provide an additional substantial income for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to supplement any earnings for other work to support a livelihood. at present more than £14 billion is loaned to around one million students in england annually. the value of outstanding loans at the end of march 2018 reached £105 billion. the government expects the value of outstanding loans to be around £330 billion (2014-15 prices) by the middle of this century. the average debt among the first major cohort of post-2012 students to become liable for repayment was £32,000 (allen, audickas and tyler, 2018). this will affect the graduate population in blackburn significantly with a heavily reliant employment share in low paid work and service sector jobs. in 1922-23, 9,200 students were awarded first degrees and 1,600 were awarded higher degrees. in 2010/11, 331,000 full-time students were awarded first degrees at uk universities and 182,600 (all modes) were awarded higher degrees (bolton, 2012). clearly the social class divide has in some part been bridged, if prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 88 entry into degree education by those from disadvantaged backgrounds is used as a measure or indicator. but, does a higher education still provide social mobility that delivers improvement in security and well-being across generations? according to the department for education (2017) 24 per cent of students in receipt of free school meals at age 15 make it to higher education by the age of 19, and in the south west and east midlands regions of england the figure is just 15 per cent (higher education policy institute, 2018). those graduates without pre-existing “security blankets” such as inheritance are vulnerable even when residing in close proximity to particular economic scalar activity (e.g., the northern strategy). to be uprooted from stable support networks is compounded by the risks of precarity, temporary or prolonged, without supportive networks in regional and foreign economies. the true measure of a higher education is in its benefits as a wider public good. i argue that this fundamental role of higher education production can be realised by developing a glocal potential, the ability to direct knowledge capital in social production activity that meets local basic needs. the ability to plan and cope with diverse economic crises is a prerequisite for graduates today. rapid adaptations in technology, jobs and employment practices necessitate a regular enhancement of skills in response to shifting needs, or at least the stability to refine and hone existing skills. another prerequisite for protection from precarity is an engagement with financial investment in lifelong learning over the life-course. learning that is directed at strengthening networks of security through access to social production assets not sought in a critical education directed towards widening participation. many graduates are working in jobs that do not require degree qualifications. furthermore, other factors affect the ability to maintain a prolonged security over the life-course. class action in higher education needs to be understood in the context of a deepening and widening retreat of state funded social protection systems, combined with employment insecurity and an abandonment of the standard employment contract model by employers in welfare capitalist states. with the erosion of supportive welfare policies that promote wellbeing over the life-course, larger shares of risks from the crises from economic instability in a globalised economy are (re)shifting to individuals. high skilled labour is not exempt from existential threats from events and interactions at structural scales (global, international, national, regional, county). neither are they immunised from the ontological insecurity, if uncertainty is experienced at the level of the individual, household and community, on a more prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 89 regular basis. human labour is being displaced by automation, robotics and artificial intelligence combined with the major challenges of reviving growth, reforming market capitalism and managing technological change (the world economic forum, 2017). traditionally, class analysis is rooted in the industrial contracts of corporatism, in the production and employment relations and the ownership and control of the means of production. in a post-industrial, welfare-averse capitalist society, class-complexity cannot be reduced to occupational and work identities, or some abstract ascent from one class to the other. class-complexity needs to be understood as the intersectionality of the concentration of precarity in particular student biographies. the expansion of the uk higher education sector (1970-2013) has been greater than in most of the rest of europe. however, occupational filtering down means that graduates are entering jobs that were once carried out by their non-graduate mothers and fathers. a degree has become a requirement for an ever-larger proportion of jobs and skills mismatches are leading to 4.3 million workers possessing skills and qualifications beyond the requirements of their employment (chartered institute of personnel and development, 2015). the number of non-employing businesses have increased by 112,000 with the growth being around +3% (business, innovation and skills, 2016; new policy institute, 2015), which is an indication of contemporary production practices that will in future perpetuate precarious labour market experiences. the era of downward mobility is now a reality, the role of education in social promotion valorised in discourses of meritocracy have been exposed as cloaks for the naked inequality of human conditions and prospects (bauman, 2012; giroux, 2014; giroux, 2015). in britain the increase in students from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds entering higher education; the increase in black and minority ethnic (bame) students and white boys entering higher education; improving degree attainment and graduate outcomes for bme students; reducing barriers for disabled students (universities uk, 2016) provide policy agendas that avoid the social relational basis of disadvantage that some students face. recent concern about suicides amongst the student community is evidenced by levels of mental illness. mental distress and low wellbeing among students in higher education in the uk are increasing and are high relative to other sections of the population (institute for public policy research, 2017). the links between debt and mental health for university students are well documented (e.g., macaskill, 2018). a critical education prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 90 for precarity necessitates a curriculum that develops students’ ability to understand the effects of debt and the potential strategies to limit the effects of debt over the life-course. such strategies include a self-sufficiency that insulates against economic insecurity. 3. recent classifications of class: global dependence and glocal potential the bbc great british class survey (savage et al., 2013) identifies that britain’s social stratification has undergone change. it emphasises a class position based on income, types of work, education, geographic location and cultural preferences. this stratification will now be considered under the logic of two interrelated variables (global dependence-glocal potential) and will provide an integrated analysis of class for the purposes of a critical pedagogy of precarity. a critical pedagogy that develops a conscientisation of ‘with the world’ rather than ‘in the world’. to be ‘with the world’ is to understand how the transactions, interactions and transfers of knowledge capital translate to the ecological, social, economic, political and cultural environments. the nature of multiple interdependencies at multiscalar points of action and economic transactions and its effects can be studied in the locality. there is inherent tension but potential complementarity between two scalar logics: those of global dependence and glocal potential. the first highlights the multiple interdependencies across territories, scales, networks and places in a still emerging and changing world market, world of states, and global society, ranging from the local through to the global. conversely, glocal potential indicates the differential scope to create conditions locally that facilitate integration into (or, indeed, exclusion from) the wider economic, political, and social environment on favourable terms. the aim is to provide security from precarity by investing in (enhanced) localised social infrastructures rather than engaging in a race-to-the-bottom. and this depends, in turn, on the development of an informed view of how the global environment affects the glocal potential of a locality, and to respond accordingly. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 91 prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 92 using the above schema to explore the circulation of precarity-security across the new classifications of class, i assume that each class has a direct or indirect relationship with the elite position within a circle (representing those within and outside of changes in the circulation of precarity-security) that is squeezed into an oval due to the upward pressure concentrating security in the elite and established middle class positions. the elite position possesses and controls the most capital and creates crises by accumulating surplus to increase security. the ever-increasing returns (of rent, commodities, residential and commercial property, intellectual property rights and profit) and through the transfer of this capital into the globalised economy aligns the elite more or less towards a global-dependence. their economic behaviour may not correspond to their nationalism or glocal outlook, but their security relies on making sense-and-meaning of the world through the finance and property markets that hosts their capital. they have a tendency towards a cosmopolitan and open view of the world and possess networks of security that can span large geographical distances. in this position, security from precarity is experienced over a prolonged and multi-inter-generational horizon. existential threats and ontological insecurity are mitigated through a security acquired from multiple sources. the utility of glocal potential is only relevant when generational land ownership concerns are in play. the established middle class possess skills, capital and inheritance that can be transferred across generations, in order to defer, displace or delay precarity to a later date through supplementary capital acquired through minor rents (additional property and savings) and networked social relations, reliance on financial values or investment potentials from markets, along with the elite position. in this position security is more or less experienced over a prolonged and intergenerational horizon in a stable society. existential threats and ontological insecurity are mitigated over several generations acquired through inheritance and savings, particularly intra-generational savings and capital, and close proximity to the elite position. the utility of glocal potential is relevant as they live in secure neighbourhoods with established social networks, possibly forged over a generation, charitable giving and involvement in local issues and a global-dependence through national issues. the technical middle-class exchange skills that are more or less required over time (but rely on factors like mobility, motility, regular upskilling and training). their knowledge capital prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 93 must follow the circulation of security from significant development opportunities within the constraints of a global finance economy. the opportunity to acquire capital through housing is also available to this position relative to the availability of debt. their direct economic interactions are mainly with the established middle class rather than the elite position. this risk of precarity will depend on geographical location conditions, the cost of housing-earnings differentials. economic crisis may lead to temporary precarity and, if located where global finance may be in retreat to other locations, can lead to prolonged precarity. a balance between global-dependence and glocal potential is relevant as glocal potential can off-set the volatility of the global economy through localised and networked solidarities. existential threats and ontological insecurity are deferred through proximity to the established middle security position. the affluent worker, traditional working class and precariat share a more interactive class position and interact with the global dependence as a goal but rely heavily on glocal potential for social infrastructure and non-ownership resources. working in declining industries, service sector jobs in a 24/7 economy, mobile knowledge workers with newly acquired skills or those without skills working in emerging local industries. the risk of precarity in these class positions are most subject to precarity (temporary, prolonged and generational). the affluent worker can rely on a high income over the short-term but is still some distance away from an enduring security. the traditional working class are at risk of absolute precarity periodically. they also rely the most on glocal potential as the mechanisms of precarity can be mitigated at the local level through networked social relations. precariat, without support networks, experience absolute and prolonged precarity more regularly, due to infrequent income. existential threats and ontological insecurity for these three class positions emanate from low income work; household debt; political de-individuation, isolation and dealignment; incomebased poverty; lack of skills, over-qualification and a skills mismatch; declining social mobility and; time poverty. britain is deeply divided: social and ethnic friction, fragmentation and disunity has reared its head in recent developments that brings a return of a marginalised white working class in opposition with the rest of society. class in the classical sense is once again a point of discussion and analysis in british politics and policy. politics and policy, however, are not only realisable in some abstract space of policy analysis or the institutions of governance but are prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 94 also achieved through relational practices between social beings outside the parameters of policy objectives. class action in education has been a feature of politics in higher education for many decades now (e.g., readings, 1997). uk widening participation policy includes distinct, interdependent and divergent policies across the four nations of the united kingdom, broadly under a set of assumptions about the nature of educational inequalities, how they arise and how they should be addressed, which are grounded in notions of equality of opportunity and outcome. however, the higher education system operates in a globaldependent environment characterised by increasing national and international competition (donnelly and evans, 2018) and a pressing need for evidence on widening participation interventions in the uk context, and nuanced interpretation and development is required to ensure that heis develop interventions appropriate to their own context (younger et al, 2018, p. 29). the implications of recent classifications of social class to the learning environment must recognise that educational backgrounds influence outcomes for graduates. this is replicated in the different classes of universities that reproduce the differences in outcomes for graduates from particular backgrounds through the destinations of those graduates. the class structure when linked to occupational outcomes demonstrates a differentiation between graduates who are able or unable to achieve a prolonged security through immunisation from the cycles of persistent economic crises. 4. a radical pedagogy for precarity protection from precarity comes with security and a stability to make long term choices. a radical pedagogy for precarity requires the conscientisation of alternative futures and a deeper investigation of present crises in the particular locality of the university. social action, political strategy and tactics are required to imagine new modes of social production, nonownership social infrastructures that may provide sustainable approaches to development and progress at a local level. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 95 the venn diagram above condenses the conditions that result from the social, ecological, economic, cultural or political conditions that prefigure the experience of precarity (these are detailed in appendix i). the following seven factors (a detailed explanation is provided in appendix ii) are relevant and significant to understanding the experience of precarity in contemporary britain: • low income work • household debt • political individuation, isolation and dealignment • income-based poverty • lack of skills, over-qualification and a skills mismatch • declining social mobility • time poverty in order to explore these factors in an assessment of class, education and pedagogical practice both student and educator must engage in critical learning about these conditions and the social infrastructures required to mitigate them. the heuristic offers a device to observe and analyse precarity and the associated uncertainty, at the level of individuals, prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 96 households, communities and geographical locations. i am particularly interested in how precarity is affected through global-dependent investments and the sources of local vulnerability and how this affects the lived experience and life-chances of undergraduates, and the wider community. the disadvantage of access and outcomes in the uk widening participation agenda does not address the lack of particular resources and support that may have preceded and may follow some undergraduates’ educational journeys. class disadvantage in higher education equates to the absence of particular resources and support that provide pre-existing ontological security and this provides further advantages to defer the aforementioned factors that create precarity. blackburn and the surrounding areas feature disadvantages from all if not most of the indices for deprivation. this locality of the university provides a classroom for inter/multi-disciplinary investigations to explore the experience of uncertain and insecure social conditions that emanate from the generative mechanisms of precarity and how such conditions in undergraduates can be mitigated through social infrastructures that provide security from crisis-induced precarity. as briefly discussed, the interplay among generative mechanisms is complex. nonetheless each provides a basis for observation through fieldwork and a taxonomy for assessing levels of precarity and how they interact. strategies to bring about social change require particular tactics due to the complexity of social relations. social production of basic needs that is collaboratively and co-operatively organised through formal and informal structures or through anarchic, spontaneous, disorganised and informal depoliticised and destatised activism. it is necessary to elaborate on the relevance of the terms depoliticisation and destatisation to a discussion about class, pedagogy and education. depolitisation connotes a conscientisation of political activity that makes a conscious effort to identify and respond to the partisanship, ideological agendas, political motivations that feature in class action in education, or in the macropolitics in our social relations. destatisation is to establish social interactions that are exchanged between social beings outside of formal political and organisational processes. the accountability is in the founding principles of prosociality, solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability and democratic practices in education that are directed towards meeting local welfare needs. clearly, education is a prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 97 signifier of the prevailing cultural truth of a society. higher education, in particular, is a rich source of understanding about how a society values education as a lifelong endeavour. depoliticisation and destatisation assume that it is the prosociality between social beings that facilitate further co-operative planning and action rather than established oppositional partisan politics in the shadow of a hierarchy of vested corporate interests. it has been proposed that graduates in developed capitalist welfare economies face uncertainty and crisis-induced precarity. therefore, the social production of social infrastructure and shared resources becomes an imperative for generic education beyond university, an education that equips students with knowledge of the risks of skills-wage-debt precarity. a critical pedagogy for precarity should be centred on pedagogical praxis that provides a language for exploring the effects and generative mechanisms of precarity. the focus of this needs to be on the global-local interactions through the territorial, place, scale and network potentialities and vulnerabilities. the shared precarity, albeit experienced differentially by the educator and the student provides the scope for dialogical co-intentional action (read and leathwood, 2014). in order to transform mental habits and bodily practices, firstly, local solidarity-based associational spaces have to be created and utilised as the classroom for a radical critical pedagogy for precarity, in which being ‘in the world’ consciousness (vulnerable to precarity and insecurity) can be transformed into being ‘with the world’ consciousness (food security, shared housing, access to common resources). objective distance from reality can only be created when approaches to develop social value production utilise post-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity practices in order to produce social provisioning of housing, food, energy and welfare in general, in exchange for time resources from graduates across disciplines towards social provisioning. in learning a common language that articulates relations of oppression and domination, we learn to define and to distinguish between the ‘human’ and ‘de-human’ practices and encounter the problem posing or imagining of alternatives, once we think about reality in these terms. this is the starting point of imagining an individual biography that is a unique history, which is socially universal, common and shared, this being the need to sustain ourselves in the evolutionary sense and through productive work. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 98 the widening participation agenda in the uk has merely instituted social relations that constitute peculiar pedagogical subjectivities and identities that presuppose the servility to the neoliberal logic and the centrality of this as the purpose of higher education (readings, 1997; canaan and shumar, 2008; molesworth, scullion and nixon, 2011; mcgettigan, 2013; rapper and olsen, 2016). the neo-liberalisation of higher education in the uk legitimises a higher education for employability rather than for a prolonged security over the life-course. in opposition to the competitive behaviour based on the logic of a neoliberal economy, prosociality provides the basis for learning new ways of thinking about our lives. value creation through knowledge that is directed to benefit others and sustain us. prosociality is a foundational construct in the imaginary of alternative economic regimes and modes of production. prosociality refers to behaviours that are intended to benefit others and, are associated behaviours such as, empathy, co-operation, and reciprocity. prosociality connotes modes of thinking, behaviours, actions, and the social and educational practices that are motivated to create value for others, but without the intention of manipulation, exploitation or domination. in blackburn the escalation of food poverty is being responded to by self-organised foodbanks, contributed to by local residents and activists. the food bank is an exemplar of how self-organised forms of social activism respond to crises in a way that partisan politics or policy analysis cannot achieve within the time of need for more and more families. a critical pedagogy for precarity engages with such social conditions to understand the vulnerabilities we all share, albeit differentially. this conscientisation of how the global-local interacts provides ample research problems for engineers, sociologists and health and social care professionals alike. conscientisation is the basic dimension of reflective action for educator and student. freire’s (1973) call to action for a pedagogy of the oppressed holds utility for resistance by the precarious in advanced economies. educational practices inside and outside the classroom that engage in a praxis of neoliberal de-socialisation, and encourage social production for security against future precarity. this refers to the transformation of a consciousness which has been historically and culturally conditioned through insecurity. the common language that is available to a critical pedagogy of precarity starts with an encounter prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 99 with personal ‘uncertainty’ and towards building a ‘universal basic security’. local conditions provide opportunities to study class as a shared disadvantage and imagine the prosocial practices of solidarity to produce shared resources. 5. concluding remarks i have attempted to apply the precarity-security heuristic to the analysis of emerging social class classifications, their relevance to widening participation in uk higher education and critical pedagogical practice. the precarity-security heuristic has utility in giving shape to class experience and conditions beyond myopic classifications, particularly in a former industrial working-class community in nw england. the heuristic has been integrated with the new classes of the great british class survey 2013 and provides further depth to the classifications in relation to the conditions and generative mechanisms of precarity-security in the shadow of global-dependence and glocal potential. the main contribution to critical pedagogical practice is in highlighting the opportunity to engage in dialogic encounters between practitioners and undergraduates centred on a freireian radical pedagogical language of possibility of social value production, non-ownership resources and social infrastructures through prosocial pedagogical practices, rather than rooted in a neoliberal logic of competition. in conclusion, widening participation efforts need to recognise recent developments in the market for skills and understand local conditions in a global context to address issues of difference in outcomes for particular graduates. higher education practitioners can contribute to addressing the issue of declining social mobility by facilitating a universal basic security and life-course horizons for graduates by adopting the principles of the social and solidarity economy in critical education. by understanding the circulation of precarity-security we can imagine alternative futures, social and political organisation that is directed to understanding local conditions, personal biographies of precarity and the protective factors 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lack of access to legal and social rights. such limits are hypothesized to produce existential threats if they exist at the structural dimension and as an ontological insecurity if experienced at the level of the individual, household and community. 2. the gradual deterioration of social mobility (intra-generational and inter-generational) that creates regressive discrepancies between parental and offspring well-being, caused by the absence of prolonged security. it is assumed that security from precarity is transmitted inter-generationally through capital assets/inheritance and intra-generationally by prevailing social relations. precarity is deferred, displaced, or transmitted between social groups intra-generationally (from spouse to spouse, parent to offspring, offspring to parent). in policy terms, one group is precarised at the expense of the other. policy as a structural constraint becomes a zero-sum game. in general terms, the functioning of society relies on the functioning of households with its component individuals. the measure of progress is social value created for some future need. 3. the limits on the ability to exchange skills and labour in particular economic regimes for wages and income above the required sum to sustain a livelihood, corresponding to the ability to make long-term choices, e.g., marriage, family planning, housing. the heuristic assumes that a knowledge-based economy is subject to rapid and disruptive technological change affecting the speed of the production process, transfers the ownership of intellectual property, reductions in the use of human labour and creates a greater demand, and therefore a competition, for particular skills in the short-term. 4. an increase in political isolation (defined as disengagement from formal and informal forms of government and governance) and limits on the capacity to engage in political resistance (defined as engagement in direct and indirect forms of formal and informal social action due to existential anxiety and ontological insecurity). 5. the limits on one’s ability to direct one’s time toward pursuits that support human capital development, social infrastructures and human flourishing, e.g., education and training, leisure, food and energy security, furthermore, creating a scarcity of time due to the proportion of one’s time utilised to meet basic needs. in sum, a lack of discretionary time and associated economic resources to capitalise on the discretionary time for welfare needs. the above conditions are the outcomes of precarity that are affected by a range of generative mechanisms that surround the circulation of precarity-security. these include multiple sources for precarity, interacting and counter-acting with each other and the social being/spatial collectivity, and resulting in differential experiences of precarity-security. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 107 appendix ii. the generative mechanisms of precarity 1. wage/salary – the quantity and stability of wages over time and/or the security of a predictable salary provides some protection from precarity, however, it is significantly dependent on other generative mechanisms (levels of debt, wage-cost of living differentials, prices for basic necessities, the availability of social infrastructures, non-ownership shared resources). the absence of stable wages over time or a secure salary inhibits the ability to plan for the future through the weakening of opportunity to accumulate capital at the level of the individual or household in order to defer precarity in the short-run. 2. inheritance – the availability of inherited assets/resources that sustain a prolonged stable security over time that supports risk-taking and expands choices through economic, cultural, and social capital. inheritance can delay and defer precarity to a later date or provide rental income to supplement any resources through wages/salary. 3. technology – recent developments in automation, augmented reality and other disruptive technologies that reduce the need for human labour have the potential to devalue skills acquired for particular types of work. on the other hand, digital technology enables the functioning of networks that create opportunity and social infrastructure. 4. skills – provide the ability to participate in exchange relations with other social beings and spatial collectivities and enhance the support networks made available in the exchange relationship between capitallabour, thereby increase geographical mobility to exploit opportunities based on a global-dependent logic, or the deprivation of mobilities available to high-skilled labour. 5. land access/commons – the absence/availability of land, accessible common assets, or social infrastructures that can insulate against precarity through the opportunity to sustain biological and financial needs beyond the wage-cost of living differentials. for instance, crowd funding, urban farming, co-operative housing or community energy. 6. migration – the advantage experienced by the indigenous population or the mobility experienced by the high-skilled and the disadvantage experienced by new and recent arrivals into foreign societies. this includes conditions associated with those who seek refuge from forced displacement and/or high-skilled mobile or foreign labour. 7. availability of discretionary time – the advantage that privileges some with more opportunity to dedicate time to pursuits that provide protection against precarity or at least defer precarity to a later date, in order to sustain the continuity of security over time. 8. social capital – the opportunity to develop the necessary cultural capital that allows for the development of non-ownership resources and shared social infrastructures. this consequently enhances the ability to make sense and meaning of the world as we find it, and therefore exercise informed political control over local issues. prism 2(1) education, pedagogy and class prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 108 9. territory, place, scale, network the degree to which the spatial and non-spatial dimensions of social space (territory, place, scale and network) create stability/crisis and (in)security (temporary, prolonged or generational). highly skilled labour or labour in demand are advantaged and therefore become mobile through the scalar advantages available to particular skills, in particular times and, in particular geographies, afforded through networks, or the opportunities available through glocal potential through place-based solidarities and social and political action (jessop, 2016). 10. age, frailty and disability – the risks and advantages of precarity-security that increase over the life course requiring protection through adequate pension cover, housing equity, social care costs, or the importance of social support networks, including the precarity-security that is associated with frailty and disability. 11. social relations – the precarity-insecurity that is unevenly distributed as a result of prejudice, exploitation and domination. the impact of the social relation mechanism can be observed on the basis of differentiated employment security and occupational privileges. this also includes social life in competitive economic cultures that operate on the founding principle of scarcity versus co-operaton and prosociality founded upon the abundance or sufficient principle. 12. debt – the ability to inhibit ontological security at the level of the individual/household and existential anxiety at the level of a collectivity through limited security or through the social relation that facilitates the displacement of one’s labour towards value creation for others (financial institutions, investors, asset grabbers). prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 1 editorial: reflections at the crossroads copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 1-3 terry mcdonough university centre at blackburn college terry.mcdonough@blackburn.ac.uk 1. a road less travelled? frost’s 1916 poem the road not taken is often misunderstood. seen by most as “paean to self-assertion” (orr, 2015), this common reading misses the essential point: that each road, in frost’s terms, is “really about the same.” it’s not that the path that appears less travelled is of greater value than the one worn bare by previous travellers; it’s that each path leads to the same place. whatever our choices, whatever our intentions, we’re always exactly where we are. hindsight grants us the benefit of valuing one choice over another (by virtue of its consequence) and thinking that our choice “made all the difference.” the point, however, is that our choice made little difference. we rarely had a choice. the path was chosen for us. frost’s poem, then, isn’t about self-assertion (as many readers believe); it’s a poem about how we rationalise the lack of self-assertion, how most decisions are made for us, prescribed prior to our intervention, and motivated largely by the circumstances that define us at any given time. in the first editorial i wrote for this journal, i argued in favour of prism as a ‘third space.’ i celebrated this ‘third space’ as an alternate forum, created as some sort of panacea to the dominance of corporate academic publishing. indeed, prism has become a third alternative, nestled between the corporate giants and the self-published fanzines so rife in the digital sphere. the conceit, however, was to propose that we defined this space: that we somehow chose to walk the road not taken, as though conscious deliberation spotted an overgrown prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 2 path ahead. this was never true. as frost tells us, it’s hindsight that makes all the difference. outcomes rarely seem inevitable in retrospect. prism was born from necessity, not intention, and necessity, as we well know, is often the mother of invention. it’s necessity that made all the difference. operating in a collegebased environment, a space woefully under-represented in terms of research and scholarship, with little to no resources, prior experience, or available funding, there was only ever one path ahead. and that’s the path we walked. whether we walked it well or not is a task for hindsight. i took over the helm at this journal rather unexpectedly. there have been many trials and achievements along the way. occasionally, i have stopped and peeped through the undergrowth to see how other travellers fare. they largely fare the same. those on higher ground struggle with the altitude and yearn for the comfort of the forest floor. those on the forest floor dream about the higher ground, its landscapes and its vistas. while each is different to the other, the destination remains the same. we’re peddlers of ideas. each word, from the first to the last, is a step along the path that chose us. what we make of it is hindsight’s claim. and on that rather obtuse point, i sign-off my tenure as prism’s editor in chief. before i depart, however, i leave you with an even more obtuse chinese parable1. mischievous or meaningful? i’ll let hindsight decide. once upon a time there was a farmer. his only horse ran away. the farmer’s neighbours came to pay their condolences. “what a terrible thing,” they all said. “maybe, maybe not. who’s to say?” replied the farmer. 2. this issue much like the obtuse linguistic refraction above, this issue is highly experimental. we never intended it to be this way. there was no call for papers, no elicitation from the fringe. it simply happened this way, and what an interesting happening it is. in our first article, deterala and villar present a reflective dialogue on disaster and how one “knows” what one knows when knowledge is mediated and received indirectly. what we 1 adapted from watts (1957) the way of zen. new york: pantheon. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 3 know, or what we think we know, is often transmitted via natural language vis a vis our interactions with others. the authors practise a dialogic reflexivity to trace the paths between what they call “constellations of meaning.” continuing prism’s tradition of supporting early career researchers, hamilton follows with a mixed-methods approach to the way autism is represented in the british press. refracting traditional critical discourse analysis (cda) through the lens of critical theory (with a touch of the frankfurt school tradition), hamilton challenges the media’s often insensitive, sometimes brutal, othering of the autistic community as somehow non-normative or problematic. shukie follows with a meditation on chaos and connectivism in the context of learning theory. drawing from a heady range of thinkers, from the french philosophical tradition to information theory, shukie challenges the orthodoxy of mechanistic teaching and learning strategies. in a more grounded piece, shepherd, fishwick, crighton and starkie curate a roundtable discussion on the effectiveness of augmented reality (ar) in classroom teaching. based on an experiment conducted by the team, the authors evaluate students’ responses to ar, revealing some surprising results. the penultimate piece may be a first for any scholarly journal. husband, murphy and petrie present a play in two acts. (yes, a play!) aimed at addressing the lived experience of workers in the further education sector, the authors (or playwrights?) use the form of a dramatic dialogue to tease out the concerns and dilemmas that may resonate with those working in the sector. finally, john harrison reviews the principal: power and professionalism in fe. bringing a wealth of experience in he management, and a critical eye, harrison appraises the accuracy and value of a collection designed to both challenge and enlighten its readership. references orr, d. (2015). the most misread poem in america. the paris review, 11th september 2015. watt, a. (1957) the way of zen. new york: pantheon. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 89 review: interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: a critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity copyright © 2017-2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 1 (2): pp. 89-93 paul reynolds edge hill university paul.reynolds@edgehill.ac.uk roy bhaskar., r, danermark, b. and price, l (2018) interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: a critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity routledge studies in critical realism, london: routledge. pp.173. this text attempts to develop a critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity and explore its application to health and well-being. it is structured into three broad sections. the first chapters provide a short general discussion of the problems arising from current conceptual debates around interdisciplinarity, and an assessment of how it can be justified as a means of conceiving and articulating the social world. this is effectively an exercise in 'clearing the terrain' of extant approaches to interdisciplinarity, focusing on the theoretical problems that limit attempts to move such an approach from aspiration to analysis. the centre of the book is five chapters that articulate a lecture course by roy bhaskar the leading intellectual figure in the development of critical realism on critical realism and interdisciplinarity from 2009 (credited as being given in oslo in the preface and orebro, sweden in the introduction). they provide a foregrounding for the discussion of interdisciplinarity and wellbeing. this critical realist approach is then applied to issues of health and wellbeing, with the intention of both demonstrating what value it adds to health prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 90 and wellbeing research, and contributing new insight as to how interdisciplinarity should be understood and used. the fundamental premises behind the text will be familiar to anyone who has been involved in discussions about how to stretch analysis beyond disciplinary lines without losing rigour and criticality. claims for interdisciplinarity, and other formulations in the same 'language game' trans-disciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity (with or without hyphens i prefer the hyphenated form but will use the format the authors use for this review) tend to be broadly associated with creativity, criticality and a more nuanced, sophisticated and wider reaching research project. in the rhetoric of scholarship, these claims extend to a wide range of very different and disparate approaches to research. whilst this diversity might itself be a condition of stepping beyond disciplines, there is a general sense that it more reflects some rather undertheorised, inconsistent and unreflective approaches. 'imagination' is achieved by 'recognising' different disciplinary approaches, which can amount to drawing magpie-like from different disciplines or their vocabularies, in a superficial and variable way that makes the reading of interdisciplinary studies a 'pick and mix' of sophistication and frustration. part of the debate has drifted down an entirely unproductive dichotomisation of 'stale and rigid disciplinarity' against 'absences of thoroughness, coherence and discipline in argument and analysis in interdisciplinarity'. hence the claims of this text are to develop a critical realist approach that provides ontological and theoretical underpinnings and schematisations to ensure interdisciplinarity does not become a synonym for undisciplined eclecticism. a critical realist approach avoids 'unilinear reductionism, addictive atomism, and naive eclecticism' (p.1) in order to develop an approach that is able to engage critically, as only interdisciplinarity can, with 'the opensystems character within which practically all events occur' (p.2). the (perhaps too short) first section of the text draws what it sees as the main features of interdisciplinarity as currently manifest in the literature: the driving forces that motivate it; definitional debates; its failures to meet its claims; its personalistic approach; institutional and organisational issues and bibliometric issues. it then dwells on a seventh feature that underlies all of them, which is that the pervasiveness of disciplinarity precedes interdisciplinary work and as such supplants needed philosophical and theoretical debate at prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 91 a metatheoretical level, and often prescribes self-limiting approaches to moving beyond a disciplinary focus. this sets up the need for critical realism to fill the void. whilst this is a logical approach to framing the absence in order to prescribe the solution, it is ironically short on surveying the literature and does not provide a contextualisation of the development of interdisciplinary approaches over the last forty years and the different factors institutional, political, intellectual, within and between theoretical traditions that have brought us to this point. one simple observation marxist, feminist, anti-racist and disability traditions of thinking have at their foundations different forms of critique of disciplinarity as an intellectual and institutional construct, but this is hardly acknowledged. the 'absence', then, is by no means as absent as they suggest, and there is work to be done mapping these different analyses and laying out the terms of debate around disciplines and their borderlines. one of the most important antecedents to interdisciplinarity in the last 70 years was the 'cultural turn' from the 1950's where cultural theory and analyses developed in the social sciences and social and political analyses took increasing prominence in the arts and humanities yet there is no sense of considering these developments. the middle of the book is bhaskar's lectures on critical realism, articulated principally by price in textual form. this gives rise to a reflection on the composition of the text, which is by no means as coherent as danemark and price would suggest, and it does raise the question of how to pursue this sort of writing project. danermark and price had both collaborated with bhaskar to different degrees prior to his death in 2014, and they shared a common focus on a critical realist approach to interdisciplinarity. the composition of the text reflects a process of taking bhaskar's lectures and building context and application around them. danermark and price then share the attribution to the remaining chapters noting that bhaskar has completed his contributions to the introduction and conclusion, and 'commented on early versions, or at least the outlines, of these chapters' (p. viii). undoubtedly, the inclusion of unpublished and unfinished work by bhaskar will generate a wider audience, but it is not clear how far it benefits or compromises the focus of the text. for example, the written articulation of bhaskar lectures might be of interest of themselves and edited alongside other unpublished lectures and be of interest in the way foucault's college de france lectures have become indispensible sources for foucault prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 92 scholars. they would also be valuable, as in price's articulations here, in avoiding the criticism of bhaskar's writing that it is often overly complex to the point of incomprehensibility.1 could the authors have acknowledged their debt to bhaskar differently? there is little doubt routledge would see the value to their series and to a purchasing audience of bhaskar as author, but as it is, this approach does produce a text of three distinct and disjointed parts. the lectures have a value as a presentation of bhaskar's general ideas, but do not join coherently with what is before or after. the final essays have their own problems. ironically, wellbeing is discussed very much as 'health and wellbeing' and in the context of a health paradigm. this completely overlooks a substantial and emergent body of literature that takes an interdisciplinary approach to conceiving well-being in relationship to what has come to be framed as 'happiness industries' and 'wellbeing' projects within late capitalist markets and institutions, or philosophical debates around flourishing, or post-humanist, nomadic, phenomenological and deleuzian explorations of the affective and embodied as well-being. their discussions do raise questions about how we should explore issues such as: placebo effects and healing; the architecture of processes and classifications of medical conditions; the notion of interdisciplinarity in institutional provision; and the operation of epidemiology through the example of hiv. that said, there are literatures both within and across disciplines that raise the issues that are not covered effectively here, and that challenge the constitution of medicalised discourse within health institutions and the benefits of multi-agency team working in instantiating (with various degrees of success) interdisciplinary discussion. whilst they make a point of referring back to the vocabulary of critical realism to underpin the value of their claims, it is no means clear how critical realism distinctively adds critical value. indeed, the text reads more as if the authors are trying to draw together threads of past work and packaging them to develop a coherent and sophisticated engagement with the subject matter. that effort is not persuasive. this does not diminish the value of some sharply observed critical comments on the topics they discuss, but the sum of parts does not leave a whole that provides what it claims a general 1 see http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm and bhaskar's honourable mention in 1996 prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 93 theory of interdisciplinarity played out and illustrated through an exploration of wellbeing. that is a disappointment and a missed opportunity. prism journal prism vol.1(2) (2018) https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 1 © 2018 prism, issn: 2514-5347 roland barthes, guy debord and the pedagogical value of creative liberation craig a. hammond school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk) published: 01/07/2018 abstract the flexible remit of this article should operate as an invitation for educational practitioners to consider and hopefully engage with a range of democratic and pliable pedagogical tactics, and ways in which they might be adapted across academic and curricular contexts. as such, the article does not present a specific and robustly complete set of educational practices, replete with pre-assigned instructions for an exact and replicative application. rather, the brief tract should operate to incite and generate thoughts and ideas relating to new and alternative possibilities; and, in doing so, nudge new and insurgent ways of engaging with knowledge, our environments and students. through the exploration of a specific range of ideas and concepts, (taken and adapted from the work of roland barthes and guy debord), namely the death of the author, the dérive and détournement, the piece urges practitioners, to creatively confront the debilitating values and excesses of consumption, currently sweeping through the university, with a counter-surgency of radical tactics and alternatives. keywords: higher education; consumerism; roland barthes; guy debord; pedagogical tactics; creativity 1. roland barthes & guy debord: echoes of liberation whilst the philosophical works and concepts of roland barthes (1915-1980), and guy debord (19311994), contain inevitable differences and divergences, they also harbour an array of sympathies and similarities, supported by the fact that both theorists subscribed to unorthodox permutations of marxism. 1 the influence and collaboration of barthesean ideas with debordean political/liberatory tactics is well recognised and documented; for example, see hammond, 2017; boscagli, 2014; hetherington, 2007; and, kibbey, 2005. for a detailed through the refraction of their respective frameworks, they each – through different conceptual routes – suggest that a proliferation of culture-infused voices can manifest in unpredictable, liberated and politically potent ways. as such, their oeuvres strive to reinvigorate and promote micro experiences of political activity, through everyday practices – in the form of tactics – for creative empowerment.1 for both barthes and debord, cultural material should not be categorised as an external eclecticism of purely outside and definition and exposition of the notion of pedagogical tactics, see hammond, 2017: 9-12). https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-5364 hammond (2018) prism 2 vol.1(2) completed sources; instead, culture and culture-infused experiences should be recognised and treated as a complex residue of destabilising and creative catalysts; kaleidoscopic initiations to shards of fresh and refracted enunciations (see barthes camera lucida, and mythologies, and debord’s society of the spectacle and his essays on the dérive and détournement).2 debord and the wider collective of the international situationists (abbreviated throughout this article as the situationists, or the si),3 devised and developed a number of everyday-focused tactics, which included the disconcerting and fluid notions of the dérive,4 and détournement.5 these concepts or tactics operated as both theoretical concepts and cultural practices, and were aimed at inciting antagonistic forms of micropolitical struggle. in developing and implementing their 2 for an insight to how debord challenges and adapts tenets of marxist theory, see society of the spectacle, paragraphs: 79-89, and 204-209. for a brief insight in to barthes sympathies for critical marxist activities (as opposed to dogmatically calling and labelling oneself as a marxist), see the following excerpt taken from ‘am i a marxist?’, ‘m. jean guerin enjoins me to say whether i am a marxist or not … these kinds of questions are normally of interest only to mccarthyites. others still prefer to judge by the evidence. m. jean guerin would be better advised to do as they do. let him read marx, for example. there he will discover – at least i hope he will – that you don’t become a marxist by immersion, initiation or self-proclamation … that marx isn’t a religion but a method of explanation and action; that that method demands a great deal of those who claim to practice it; and that, as a result, calling oneself a marxist is more about selfimportance than simplicity’ (barthes, 2015b: 46-48); other examples of barthes’ critical adaptations of marxist analysis can be found in his 1972 publication critical essays – especially the chapters ‘the tasks of brechtian criticism’, and ‘workers and pastors’. 3 guy debord (1931-1994), was a french marxist and intellectual provocateur who, in july 1957, became the leader of the international situationists – an eclectic and maverick group of artists and intellectuals. from the outset, the focus of the collective was to critique and challenge the stagnation and boredom of the increasingly technological and consumer driven society. practices, debord and the si set out to confront and challenge the subjective and lived experiences of everyday life, and the extent to which they had become smothered by the oblivion of the consumer spectacle. skwarek, (2014) clarifies that debord’s use of the term ‘spectacle’ refers to the corporate-branding and associated behaviours that take hold as part of the consumer society; as such, for debord, consumption not only shapes the production, marketing and distributing goods, it also diffuses a deeper and encompassing ethos, which permeates and damages wider human behaviours and expectations. as debord notes, the spectacle of consumption is, ‘not a mere decoration added to the real world’, but becomes the very heart of society (debord, 1970, p. para 9). 4 this concept (and the concept of détournement) is defined and explored in more detail later in the chapter; but, by way of an initial definition, coverley (2010) notes that the theory and practice of the dérive refers to experimental behaviours which strive to invoke, ‘a technique of transient passage through varied ambiences’ (coverley, 2010: 93). adding a little clarity to this, wark (2015) asserts that the ‘dérive is the experimental mapping of a situation’ (wark, 2015: 57), one that allows dériveurs to follow impromptu and unpredictable discoveries; from the desire to explore and wander, new places and new experiences can emerge. coverley (2010) also usefully notes that the notion and practice of the dérive has a long and varied history – one that predates the situationists. as such, it is appropriate to note that debord and the si didn’t originally conceive of the dérive, but they developed and enhanced it as a key situationist and political strategy. 5 coverley (2010) again notes that détournement is a method which encounters and tackles – with a view to creatively transforming – entrenched, established and routinised cultural practices, knowledge, or artefacts. to détourne means to seek out ‘a word, statement, image or event from its intended usage and to subvert its meaning … détournement creates new and unexpected meanings by hijacking and disrupting the original’ source of published culture (coverley, 2010: 95). hammond (2018) prism 3 vol.1(2) in perspectives for conscious alterations in everyday life (1961), debord notes that the crisis of consumption, renders everyday life as a meaningless performance of routine, ‘organized within the limits of a scandalous poverty’ (debord, 1961, p. para 11). the atomising behaviour of consumption, therefore generates a pattern of behaviour of smooth conformity, which cajoles people in to accepting a cooped existence in, ‘a sort of reservation for good natives [to] keep modern society running without understanding it’ (ibid: para 15). for debord, subjectivities within the regime of capitalistic consumption are disempowered, distracted and stranded in a political and democratic wasteland. the only way to “arouse the masses” from the standardising pulses of the system, is to shock in to conscious recognition the correlation between its values and bureaucracies, and, the subsequent poverty of everyday experience in being rendered fodder for markets and profits (si, 1960, p. para 5). it is the depoliticising backdrop and stupefying grip of the spectacle of consumption, that debord frames – with a view to reclaiming and redeeming – the hijacking and somnambulistic tendencies of individual autonomy. to navigate and challenge the intellectual and political apathy generated by the consumer onslaught, it’s essential to establish, ‘physical – as well as psychological – activities, to produce new concepts, new ideas, and new knowledge’ (wark, 2015, p. 58). the debordean tactics of the dérive and détournement (explored in more detail later in the article) thus promote a micro potency of unpredictable actions, which can be developed and pitted against the psychological stupor conjured by the spectacle. to counteract the powerful routines of consumerised space, debord promotes the practice of “inhabiting” any, and all, corporate-consumer dominated environments, with the purpose of fracturing habits of conformity, and detouring beyond strategic and structural expectations of organised compliance. 6 roland barthes, was born in cherbourg, normandy on the 12th of november 1915, and died age 65 on the 25th of march, 1980. his first book, writing degree zero (1953), examined the fluidity and instability of language, and laid out a number of ideas and concepts which he continued to a number of similar and symbiotic themes are identified within the work of roland barthes; 6 for example, his essay the death of the author (1989a), which suggests that the modern artifice of power and coherence which has grown to illude the transcience of the modern author is problematic. for barthes, the meaning of a text, ‘in contemporary culture [has become] tyrannically centred on … [the author’s] person, his history, his tastes, his passions’ (barthes, 1989a, p. 50). expressing somehow, ‘the voice of one and the same person, the author,’ intercessing a seam of truth to us (ibid: 50), which serves to render the assumed meaning of the text – and by implication knowledge – as a static entity that can be owned, corporatised and stifled. however, the shaky notion that the practice of a singular author, can somehow engineer a stasis of meaning into an array of hieroglyphic symbols, (in the form of letters and words) is akin to a blind and misguided faith. for barthes, the assemblage of a preliminary sequence of linguistic symbols and textual characters, does not reveal the psychic dimensions of its author, but instead, opens up a portal of chaotic associations harboured within the reader, recipient or scriptor; (scriptors establish new rhythms and interpretations in response to the fluidity of their encounters with the text). in ceasing to release a single authoritative meaning, ‘the author absents himself from [the text] at every level’ (ibid: 51-52); here, ‘the author enters into his own death’ (ibid: 49), and in doing so, proliferates a multi-dimensional constellation of contested meanings, ‘a fabric of quotations, resulting from a thousand sources of culture’ (ibid: 52-53). the author then, performs a catalytic function, to agitate multilinear torrents of unpredictable reinterpretations from the refracted and secret worlds of disparate scriptors. barthes’ stance regarding the unwieldy proliferation of knowledge brings the institutional positioning and micro-political practices of the higher education lecturer in to critical focus. the protocol, format and refine and develop as part of his later essays and themes, (such as the productive misinterpretation of text, the arbitrariness of meaning, and, the unpredictable chaos of personal association). hammond (2018) prism 4 vol.1(2) sanctioning of university knowledge, disseminated and filtered through mechanistic modes of delivery, is inevitably problematised by the ramifications of the death of the author. teaching across the university, generally adheres to quite typical pedagogical models, where the expert practitioner didacts a tightly surveilled canon of knowledge, on to a selected, regimented and largely inactive and audience. this is typically aligned with subordinated groups of learners being subjected to formulaic forms of assessment, consisting of perfunctory and emulatory essays. any scope for radical, passionate and creative endeavour is not only stifled, it is architecturally and strategically rendered redundant and obsolete. in the rustle of language barthes brings in to question his identity as an educator – and, its associated purpose – and asks, whether he speaks and performs in the name of, ‘a function? of a body of knowledge? of an experience? what do i represent? a scientific capacity? an institution? a service?’ (barthes, 1989b, p. 320). as part of his response, he remarks that anyone teaching in a formalised context must become increasingly conscious of their staged and exclusionary actions. he contends that the traditional format of teaching is unavoidably divisive, and based upon a dichotomous opposition: on one side, the sole and unidirectionary speech act ejected by the academic, and, on the other, the creative and unpredictable reception of a flurry of words and ideas received by the diverse and eclectic audience. and yet, when considered through the filter of the death of the author, the radical activity of scripting and writing beyond the impact of word and text, becomes reframed as a practice that can be utilised to transgress and usurp processes of control and imposed authority. encounters with language and text, and the subsequent fission of knowledge, should be akin to an ‘uninhibited person who shows his behind to the political father’ (barthes, 1975, p. 53). within the fractured interiority of a scriptor, the minutiae of subjective experiences contain kernels of creative tangents, latent and perpendicular directions of thought which, in turn, can shift beyond the cloistered spheres of academic control. through creative provocations, personal and personalised driftings can emerge through, ‘language's illusions, seductions, and intimidations’ (ibid: 18). as such, teaching as a proliferation of communication, and catalytic instability of learner encounters, harbours a political potential that can challenge, reveal and confront the terminal and privileged knowledge that underpins and upholds the authority of the university. 2. the rustle of language: expressive autonomy technical, colourless and mundane academic writing serves to suck the life, desire and pleasure out of thinking; ransacked, learners are stripped of the possibility of engaging with discovery and hopeful writing. inducted and disciplined in to the constraints of technical writing, learners develop mechanical habits, ‘in the very place where freedom existed, a network of set forms hem in more and more the pristine freshness of discourse, legalistic modes of writing appears in lieu of the undulating indefiniteness of language. the control and regulation associated with the expectations of undergraduate and postgraduate writing, also produces a secondary effect, that of psychological order. once the empire of rules, style and content has been drilled and habituated, essayistic and other technical offerings are rendered, at best, lifeless doppelgangers of pseudo-knowledge. however, should barthesean inspired approaches to expressive writing be afforded curricular and pedagogical space, positive and liberated practices of expression can develop, ‘from the scriptor's phantasmatics, and not from a uniform and reductive law … as if the scriptor were obeying not academic law but a mysterious commandment that comes to him from his own history – perhaps even from his own body?’ (barthes, 1989c, pp. 44-45). beyond the rigidity of the formal lecture-based text delivered by the academic, ‘a thousand adventures happen’ (barthes, 1989b, p. 323); as the educator, (the author of the lecture) finishes speaking, the confines of any prescheduled narrative disintegrates and falls away to reveal a vertigo of knowledge. such an approach belies a powerful challenge to the otherwise deferential and subservient silence of uncritical conformity; it serves as a reminder that the rupture between, ‘the pleasure of hammond (2018) prism 5 vol.1(2) the text and the institutions of the text’ (barthes, 1975, p. 60), is far from insurmountable. amidst the various academic challenges posed by the barthesean tactics, is the need for practitioners to begin to devise alternative approaches to curriculum design and formulaic assessments; unfamiliar permutations which can promote, and importantly, accommodate the serendipity and creativity associated with liberated learner writings. any such practices should also afford learners the freedom and non-prescribed space to scribe unpredictable and bespoke offerings; expressionistic explorations, which inevitably contain the risk of including “ignorances” and “blunders”. for barthes, any such meanders or mistakes should not be damned and failed, ‘as aberrations or debilities’ (barthes, 1989c, p. 45); rather, they should be recognised and accommodated as gestative spaces and potent cells of proto-creativity. incorporating the barthesean notion of skidding – or, ‘reinterpretive skids’ – creative and expressionistic approaches to writing can operate to tackle and reverse the traditional pedagogical replication of pupilistic prototypes, learner-automata created in the lecturer’s own image. in this sense, for barthes, it is essential to remember that, as a teacher: i speak, endlessly for and before someone who does not speak. i am the one who says i (the detours of one or we, of the impersonal sentence, are insignificant), i am the one who, under the cover of an exposition (of something known), proposes a discourse, without ever knowing how it is received (barthes, 1989b, p. 312). to recognise and accommodate the expressive and meandering connections emergent from within the scripted worlds of liberated learners, practitioners must start to creatively and tactically manoeuvre pedagogical alterations within the stultifying rules of the academic 7 see the following publications for more detail on developing and implementing alternative pedagogical tactics within higher education contexts: hammond, c. a. (2017) hope, utopia and creativity in higher education: pedagogical tactics for alternative futures. london: bloomsbury; machine.7 democratic practices and tactics should be experimented with, to ensure that serendipitous and subjective voices are afforded space to birth and grow towards meaningful explication. in recognising and accommodating connections to what might be referred to in barthesean terms, as ‘experiments in rustling’ (barthes, 1989d, p. 78), emergent writings from liberated scriptors can gradually reorient towards an experience and presence of freedom (barthes, 1970, p. 16). navigating from ‘the threat of a secret’ (ibid: 20), the opening-up of dynamic spaces and writing opportunities, means that scriptors can set out to grasp for the intrigue of undisclosed rustles, which reverberate beyond the formulary and staid routine of technico-legal academic language. in this sense, the opportunities and openness associated with barthesean liberatory tactics, can operate as micro-political and democratic catalysts. in a curricular (and, ‘delivery’) sense, rather than presenting barthes’ work and ideas as a finite and finished archive of completed texts, to be technically probed and dissected as part of an academic endgame – by comparing his conceptual strengths and limitations against the assumptions, omissions, and obliquities of other theorists; instead, alternative, radical and empowered experiences with the expressive potency of barthesean ideas are ripe for discovery. as a creative and destabilising alternative, the death of the author, can be presented as an unspecified landscape to learners, a participatory invitation offered to scriptors, to embark, discover, and creatively shape, knowledge and learning in new and unforeseen ways. the fluidity and instability of language harbours a radical potency, which can be actively shaped through the nondenominative writings of scriptors. in this sense, barthes embodies an academic and politicised reminder that the parameters of normative knowledge and university relationships, institutionally scaffolded hammond, c. a. (2017). machiavelli, tactics and utopia. in m. daley, k. orr, & j. petrie (eds.), the principal: power and professionalism in fe. london: trentham. hammond (2018) prism 6 vol.1(2) and sanctioned disciplined ranks of experts, can be challenged. 3. debordean meanders towards freedom the micro-political implications of the barthesean framework are sympathetic to a number of debord’s arguments in the society of the spectacle; debord asserts that all social structures and environments risk being infected and shaped by the power and spectacle of consumption. as is abundantly clear, the contemporary university is no longer exempted from the expectations and excesses of consumption; the academy is being rapidly restructured, to redefine its purpose and function into becoming a standardised and marketable commodity. knabb (2006) argues that the collective reconstruction of universities along the lines of large business corporations, is serving to render them as institutions of efficient ignorance. increasingly, as glossy and uncritical organisations, the financial, branding and bureaucratic purpose of the university is serving to generate a, ‘mass production of uneducated students who have been rendered incapable of thinking’ (knabb, 2006, pp. 410-411). the anarchy associated with individual creativity and democracy is, ‘taken over by the authorized organisms of power’ (vaneigem, 2004, pp. 121-122). subjected to the spectacle and processes of comfortable familiarity, the castrated role of the student-as-customer is increasingly rendered as a passive witness, who, at most, engages in instructional and ceremonious façades, to rehearse their, ‘ultimate role as a conservative element in the functioning of the commodity system’ (knabb, 2006, pp. 408-409). consumer-based processes and practices of banality serve to construct, dupe, and reformulate students as production line operatives, in a ‘paternalistically entrenched cultural mire of subservience and deference’ (ibid: 310). the increased businessification of the university, means that the qualities and practices of academic freedom and knowledge critique, in pursuit of social progress and the public good, is necessarily abandoned. the professionalised public relations role of sculpting of the university as a brand and an educational ‘product’ is something that becomes increasingly invested, honed and protected. the public image and identity of the university must be safeguarded, to ensure its ability to successfully compete in the higher education market. as collateral damage the role and identity of the lecturer, (as maverick, critic, innovator) is also increasingly subjected to an array of ‘quality control’ processes, in the form of task-specific data surveillance and target-aligned assessments. the emerging role and identity of the new university lecturer, is subsequently diluted to a technical instructor-of-knowledge, to routinely and uncritically fulfil the, ‘considerably less noble function of sheep-dog in charge of herding whitecollar flocks to their respective factories and offices in accordance with the needs of the planned economy’ (ibid: 411). as part of the carefully crafted academic machine, the likelihood of the instructor-of-knowledge, being able to confront problems of criticality, freedom and democracy; to generate alternative spaces for the practices of dynamic and radical freedom; and, to take risks in the pursuit and development of alternative pedagogical models, becomes corporately problematic and increasingly unlikely. to respond to the power and pace of such strategic and intimidating changes, the need for creative tacticians to emerge, and commence experimentations with malleable pedagogical tactics is all the more necessary (hammond, 2017). rather than resign ourselves to the politically allocated function of policing fledgling followers and curricular voyeurs into tranches of bordered readings and sanitised interpretations of knowledge, we need to subscribe to, and embrace insurgent pedagogical tactics, aimed at eliciting spontaneous caches of fresh and critical developments. as practitioners, we must therefore set out to discover, creatively adapt, and implement new pedagogical frontiers, as ‘[n]o one can develop in freedom without [first] spreading freedom in the world’ (vaneigem, 2006, p. 247). 4. the debordean dérive & détournement the in his instructional tract theory of the dérive (1958), debord defines the situationist take on this concept, and establishes it as one of the foundational principles of si practice; as he notes, hammond (2018) prism 7 vol.1(2) ‘the dérive [literally: “drifting”], [is] a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. dérives involve playful-constructive behaviour and an awareness of the psychogeographical effects of our environments; as such, a dérive is fundamentally different to the notion of an idle journey or stroll (debord, 1958, p. para 1). for debord, in one sense, the dérive is associated with the physical act of purposeful wandering; it is about actively transiting from psychic states of conformity, (behavioural and mental habits programmed over time), to engage in the active avoidance of uncritical routine. illustrating the elasticity of the dérive, debord notes that the conscious and intentional dérive or meander, can take place, ‘within a deliberately limited period of a few hours, or even fortuitously during fairly brief moments; or it may last for several days without interruption’ (ibid: para 12).8 however, the purpose and application of the dérive is not confined to a set of instructions for ‘getting lost’ in the city, it is more fluid and trans-contextual than this. as wark (2015) notes, the situationist adaptation of the dérive, also refers to: “derivare” [which] means to draw off a stream, to divert a flow. its english descendants include the word “derive” and also “river”. its whole field of meaning is aquatic, conjuring up flows, channels, eddies, currents, and also drifting, sailing or tacking against the wind. it suggests a space and time of liquid movement, sometimes predictable but sometimes turbulent. the word dérive condenses a whole attitude to life (wark, 2015, p. 22). the debordean dérive therefore refers to a shift or transition in one’s state of mind; in this sense, it is a mechanism to challenge oneself, to resist the compulsion to conform to established and stultifying 8 debord, also offers the following insight to the physical dérive: ‘in spite of the cessations imposed by the need for sleep, certain dérives of a sufficient intensity have been sustained for three or four days, or even longer. it is true that in the case of a series of dérives over a rather long period of time it is almost impossible to determine precisely when the thought patterns. debord clarifies that the dérive can be, ‘precisely delimited or vague, depending on whether the goal is to study a terrain or to emotionally disorient oneself’ (debord, 1958, p. para 14); as a result, the diverse and molten characteristics of the dérive, means that it evades rigid definition as a stable or ‘pure state’. as a tactic for creative contemplation, the dérive can be adapted to almost any situation, and serves to psychically and intellectually defibrillate the passive spectator into the role of subversive actioner, a potential ‘revolutionary following a political agenda’ (coverley, 2010, p. 97).9 replacing the figure of the baudelairean or benjaminian flâneur – a passive stroller and hapless receptor of environments – the dériveur is an active, purposeful and resistant rebel, a political actor who responds with creative and unpredictable resistance to being objectively positioned. as a key situationist challenge, debord proposes that the dérive, and the activities of the dériveur, be transposed and translated to all forms of human relationship and organisation. therefore, adapting the dérive as a situationist tactic into a melee of curricular spaces and pedagogical environments, means that a new architecture of relations and associations needs to emerge. to be reinhabited by the wandering and creative scriptings of individual dériveurs, academic spaces need to be navigated and altered, so that the wider framing of knowledge and the pre-specified roles and activities of the lecturer and learner can be countered. with this, co-constructive possibilities can start to emerge to directly change the ways in which the parameters of curricular space can be shared, encountered and experienced. dériveur’s can challenge and usurp the traditional modes of navigating and encountering learning environments, to create learning state of mind peculiar to one dérive gives way to that of another’ (debord, 1958: para 12). 9 debord questions, in relation to this point, "what is private life deprived of?" quite simply of life itself, which is cruelly absent. people are as deprived as possible of communication and of self-realization. deprived of the opportunity to personally make their own history’ (debord, 1961: para 23). hammond (2018) prism 8 vol.1(2) spaces characterised by the potential for new connections and discoveries, which remain perpetually and democratically, ‘open-ended for all participants’ (mcdonough, 2004, pp. 261-262). the spontaneity of the dérive can open up new forms of learning labyrinths, build bridges between the disparate and burbling non-linear worlds of the singular imagination, and the wider environment of pedagogy and the curriculum. with the wisp of a pragmatic technique, vaneigem suggests that individual and creative meanders can be instigated through an expansive range of cultural prompts, such as, music, film, and literature (vaneigem, 2006, pp. 198-199). but, rather than passively consume the contents of the cultural material, he stipulates that the fragments be extracted, manipulated and used as catalysts, to incite spontaneous and creative associations and new vibrant diversions. as was briefly highlighted earlier, the notion of détournement – basically, to detour – elaborates this notion of re-interpretive cultural practices. to restate coverley’s definition from above, to détourne is to seek out ‘a word, statement, image or event from its intended usage and to subvert its meaning’ (coverley, 2010, p. 95). détournement entails the politicised poaching of aspects, or segments of published texts and other material; the idea is to hijack the ossified piece of culture, and use it to produce new and unintended meanings. there is no particular size, shape or context to be associated with the source of a détourned object; as wark notes, it could, ‘be a single image, a film sequence of any length, a word, a phrase, a paragraph’ (wark, 2015, p. 40). what matters, is that as a result of the refracted association, a fresh and creative direction is unpredictably jettisoned. the si tract détournement as negation and prelude (si, 1959) identifies two related aspects to the practice of détournement; initially, the object being détourned must be stripped of its false and reified ownership, in order to be perceived as just another fluid and 10 it is interesting that similarities can be identified here between barthes death of the author, and his notion of the contributory building block of culture. secondly, once stripped of its false value, it should influence or become part of a ‘brand new ensemble’, a new and creative expression of a fresh and formative artefact of cultural work (si, 1959, p. para 1). the decomposition of the source of the original artefact, (with its associated cultural past) is rendered unimportant, as a “reinvested” expression emerges from the creative detour to produce, ‘a negation of the value of the previous organization of expression. it arises and grows increasingly stronger in the decomposition of the original’ (ibid: para 3). détourning a piece of writing, or other segment of pre-existing cultural product, is therefore the ‘opposite of quotation’ (wark, 2015, p. 40). traditionally, the rigid and authoritative process of quotation entails the insertion of a fenced piece of past information into a newly emerging ‘here-and-now’; however, it is executed within the strategic confines of an institutional setting in a specific and legislated way. quotation maintains the legal identity and separation of the existing work, retaining its security and identification as a privately owned and corporate artefact. in comparison, to détourne is to resist authorial expectations; again, as with the dérive, to engage in an activity of détournement is to adopt a participative and subversive stance, to challenge the incorporated standards of ownership and control. through reinterpretation, détournement liquefies the false truth and artificial petrification of a cultural product, and untethers the guy-ropes of authoritarian stagnancy, so that the legalistic hold over the work is weakened. ultimately, détournement embodies a ‘challenge to private property, it attacks the kind of fetishism that reifies cultural products of collective human heritage and endeavour (wark, 2015, p. 40). as a form of expressive subversion, détournement is targeted at hijacking of existing knowledge, and disrupting the consumer world of packaged and privatised order.10 expressive ‘rustles’ of language, and, the debordean liberation of creative and alternative voices. hammond (2018) prism 9 vol.1(2) 5. pedagogical tactics for future possibility commonalties the alternative pedagogical possibilities posed through the tactical latency of the barthesean death of the author, and the expressive notion of liberated writing, in conjunction with the debordean influenced dérive and détournement, hopefully provides practitioners with malleable options, to consider creatively tackling the practices and pressures dictated by edu-business and the consumer environment. rather than accepting and obeying the imposition of such expectations as a categorical imperative, pedagogical practices could be opened up to the principles of creative and expressive wandering. to pursue pedagogical co-constructions and micro moments of creative discovery, practitioners and students could start to engage in the challenge of developing tactics for alternative and transformatory practice. to counter the pressure to conform to the insipid role and values of business, all can start to resist the emerging practices of a system that is based upon the routine fulfilment of commodified and standardised tasks and outcomes. invoking the principles of the dérive and détournement, pedagogical practices could emerge that begin to challenge, through experiential discovery, the practices of rote, lifeless and regurgitative learning. such tactics are not about creating a formulaic set of instructions and measurable objectives, or implementing a situationist pedagogy; as debord notes in one more try if you want to be situationists, ‘there is no “situationism” as doctrine’, as such, we should resist the habit of exhaustively predefining knowledge, practice and outcome, prior to any explorative experimentation (debord, 2004c, p. 49). rather, negating pre-specified formulas and institutional narratives based on grades and final awards, a situationist-esque experimental pedagogy, can lead towards practices and developments that are as yet to be defined. the potential for pedagogical adaptations of these principles and tactics, means that conversations, narratives, learning-practices and expectations within and across university contexts, can start to feature as part of academic discourse, and so resist the poleaxing mental consequences of the consumer university. the death of the author, barthesean scriptorwriting, the dérive and détournement, are therefore openly and freely gifted as flexible pedagogical alternatives, which can be reinterpreted in any number of different ways. facilitating creative permutations and opportunities for discovery, untethered renovations of personal voices, moments and situations, and the provocation of wonder and astonishment, can start to come to the fore of explorative learning experiences. the array of concepts and tactics from barthes and debord form an initial basis for a political revival of pedagogical practice. fortunately, it is still possible – just – for fresh academic and democratic opportunities to unfold, where learners can be freed to collectively embark on adventures, divine and rearticulate refracted pasts, and begin to posit them as unspent possibilities for alternative future scenarios. the barthesean and debordean tactics can be used to construct learning opportunities that can, ‘rectify the past, to change the psychogeography of our surroundings, [and] hew our unfulfilled dreams and wishes out of the veinstone that imprisons them, to let individual passions find harmonious collective expression’ (vaneigem, 2004, p. 234). the insights presented by barthes, debord and the situationists could become tactical vehicles through which stepchange and experiential revolutions of everyday life emerge. as flexible mechanisms for alternative forms of curricular engagement, they can be malleably implemented and subjectively received, in ways that recognise and enable fractured searches for latent nubs of expressive hope. through such open and flexible spaces collaborators may set out to détourne conceptual fragments, and through their own troves of poignant shards, start to re-inhabit the flexible parameters of discovery and learning encounters. equipped with these tactics, pro-dynamic practitioners and learner-collaborators might start to challenge and depart from the staid, pre-specified and fatalistic consumer infected present, and in so doing start to conceive of practices and possibilities that strive for new and alternative futures hammond (2018) prism 10 vol.1(2) 6. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 7. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 10. to reference this work hammond, c. a. (2018). roland barthes, guy debord and the pedagogical value of creative liberation. prism, 1(2), 8-24. https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article3 07 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 https://doi.org/10.24377/ljmu.prism.vol1iss2article307 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ hammond (2018) prism 11 vol.1(2) 11. references barthes, r. 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(2004). comments against urbanism. in: t. mcdonough, ed. guy debord & the situationist international. cambridge: mit, pp. 120-128. http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/en/display_printable/314 http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/en/display_printable/314 http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/en/display/89 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329399357_creativity_organisational_democracy_alternative_futures https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329399357_creativity_organisational_democracy_alternative_futures https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329399357_creativity_organisational_democracy_alternative_futures http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/en/display/315 http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/en/display/321 hammond (2018) prism 12 vol.1(2) vaneigem, r. (2006). the revolution of everyday life. rebel press. wark, m. (2015). the beach beneath the street: the everyday life and glorious times of the situationist international. london: verso. prism journal prism volume 4. issue 1 (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401217 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401217 86 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 “how difficult can it be?” a non-indigenous ‘asian’ australian high school teacher’s asiancrit autoethnographic account of dealing with racial injustice. aaron teo school of education, the university of queensland, brisbane, australia (aaron.teo@uq.edu.au) received: 15/12/2020 accepted for publication: 01/09/2021 published: 06/11/2021 abstract australia’s colonial past and subsequent propagation of the white australia policy in the immigration restriction act of 1901 has meant that 'whiteness' remains central to the national imaginary. consequently, racial-colonial discourses axiomatically regulate scholarly and societal understandings of racial minorities through two unique but analogous debates – one focussed on the schism between indigenous and nonindigenous peoples; the other centred around immigration policy and multiculturalism (curthoys, 2000). in the context of australian education, there is a slowly developing collection of critical race theory (crt) scholarship that has addressed and challenged the inequities that pervade the indigenous student experience (ford, 2013; vass, 2014, 2015); however, there has been much less momentum made with other racial minorities. specifically, the experiences and voices of migrant pre-service and early career teachers from asian backgrounds like myself, who have become increasingly prevalent in australian education, remain largely absent from scholarship. in light of this, in this paper i use asian crt (asiancrit) (museus & iftikar, 2013) to present an autoethnographic account of a migrant ‘asian’ australian high school teacher’s subjectivities, quests for solidarity and attempts at dealing with racial injustice across a range of white australian classrooms. keywords: asiancrit, pre-service teachers, early career teachers, australian education, autoethnography wanna be startin’ somethin’ the day? a monday. the weather? biazing hot. the time? approximately 9:00a.m. it is my first day as a fully-fledged teacher. having successfully completed my graduate diploma in secondary education, here i was about to embark on my very first real, paid teaching job. sure, i somehow managed to navigate the 15 weeks of practicum as well as the deluge of assignments as part of my teaching qualification, but this was different! with my backpack full of the day’s https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401217 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:aaron.teo@uq.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8902-5663 prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 87 4(1) teaching resources and a heart full of nervous anticipation, i strode towards my first class. ‘clothes maketh the man,’ i had thought earlier that morning as i smugly decided that the tie, longsleeve dress shirt and pants (colour-coordinated of course) i was wearing were absolutely essential despite being in the middle of a typical scorching queensland summer. how wrong i was, as i felt the sweat start seeping out of my pores the moment i stepped away from the vortex of (slightly cooler) air created by the fan directly above me in the staffroom. as i continued anxiously, school map in hand, in the general direction of my first class (i hadn’t quite memorised where specific classrooms were, you see), i was physically stopped in my tracks by a group of three white male students, ages unknown. unclear of their intentions, i smiled at them. just as i was about to wish the trio a good morning, one of the boys let out a shrill ‘konichiwaaa’ and proceeded to demonstrate his best slant-eyed impression. class hadn’t even begun and here it was – my first microaggression and teaching micro-decision: what do i do? do i address the obviously inappropriate behaviour? do i ignore him? do i react in some overly punitive fashion to salvage my own pride and position as a teacher? was there truly a compromise between any of these extremes? i had mere milliseconds to decide before these students sniffed any sort of weakness if i even so much as paused. instead of jumping straight into what happens next, i pause my story here and ask you to reflect on what you would have done in this situation. for me, this incident was just one of my many run-ins with (casual) racism that continues to instantiate my position as an outsider within the teaching profession. what did i do at that point in time? i’ll get to this in just a moment – for now, let’s jump ahead to what i’m doing in this article: drawing on asian crt (museus & iftikar, 2013) to present an autoethnographic account of a migrant ‘asian’ australian high school teacher’s racial performativity and my attempts at seeking solidarity and addressing race within a series of white australian high school classrooms. as ellis (2004) explains, autoethnography is ‘research, writing, story and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social and political’ (p. xix). in other words, autoethnography acknowledges that individuals cannot be separated from social milieu, making personal experience a valid starting point for deeper sociological understanding (wall, 2008). notably, personal experience through the autoethnographer’s narrative encourages the sharing of private details and emotions to ensure that a wide range of traditional and non-traditional audiences (ellis, adams & bochner, 2011) are able to empathise and actively participate in the author’s experiences (ellis & bochner, 2000) to co-create meaning (ai, 2017). to that end, i have fused personal narrative containing scenes rich with dialogue with traditional academic prose (bochner & ellis, 2002), regularly shifting between both voices as a-way of writing, and a ‘method for conducting and displaying research’ (vasconcelos, 2011, p.417). accordingly, the remainder of this paper initially explores the backdrop of existing migrant ‘asian’ teacher scholarship, critical autoethnography as methodology, and its links to the asiancrit theoretical framework. it then continues with my autoethnographic story and concludes with a discussion based on the issues raised in the paper. we still (can’t) call australia home before using the self-as-event (ellis, 2004) to represent research as / through story, it is necessary to briefly explore other similar stories of racialised marginalisation in the existing literature. for this, the focus is specifically on migrant ‘asian’ teachers in australian schools so as to situate the context for the remainder of the autoethnographic story. one such story of racialised marginalisation is told in work done by collins and reid (2012), who report instances of overt racism faced by migrant teachers in australian schools. these instances were perpetrated by colleagues and students alike and include race-related barriers to employment and promotion, name-calling (e.g. ‘curry muncher’), and accent-related ridicule (collins & reid, 2012). similar stories of ‘othering’ can also be seen in kostogriz and peeler’s (2007) study, which was prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 88 4(1) situated in the ‘specific discourses of immigration, education and cultural politics’ (p. 110). using interviews and focus group discussions, the authors investigated the sense of workplace belonging of nine overseas-born teachers who had language backgrounds other than english (five of whom were from ‘asian’ backgrounds). in looking at this diverse group of teachers with varying years of overseas teaching experience and time spent in australia, the authors discovered that the australian teaching community used ‘gatekeeping mechanisms’ (p.111) based around the themes of boundary politics of inclusion/exclusion (e.g. delegitimisation of past professional knowledge/experiences) and marginality in workplace relations (based on employment status or perceived level of white australian cultural literacy) to filter overseas-born teachers into the local professional space. kostogriz and peeler (2007) explain that this filtering creates barriers that keep the ‘foreigner’ or the ‘other’ at bay and conclude that this ‘othering’ has to do ‘not so much with their qualification but rather with other aspects that are standing out, namely their ethnicity, culture and language’ (p. 120). yet another story of racialised marginalisation is evident in mccluskey, sim and johnson’s (2011) worrying report of a taiwanese teacher’s (‘susan’) journey as she began her australian teaching career. the authors elucidate that susan talked of exclusion and justified this through a discourse of racial difference, and thus positioned herself as ‘powerless and on the edge’ (p. 86) of the school’s community of practice. even though these stories demonstrate the detrimental effects of the silencing and marginalising power of the ‘overwhelming presence of whiteness’ (sleeter, 2001, p.94) within the australian schooling context, there has been surprisingly little progress made with non-indigenous minorities, and minority teachers in particular, from a critical (race) perspective. in light of this, the next section turns to scholarship on the critical. let’s get critical to articulate and identify hidden forces and ambiguities that operate beneath appearances; to guide judgments and evaluations emanating from our discontent; to direct our attention to the critical expressions within different interpretive communities relative to their unique symbol systems, customs, and codes; to demystify the ubiquity and magnitude of power; to provide insight and inspire acts of justice; and to name and analyse what is intuitively felt. (madison, 2005, p.13) madison’s (2005) taut definition of the critical is the basis upon which marx, pennington, and chang (2017) highlight critical autoethnography’s potential for connecting deeply personal experiences like race, gender, culture, language, sexuality, and other aspects of marginalisation and privilege to the broader context of education in society, as well as lending itself to critical perspectives by addressing how power and privilege play out. similarly, boylorn and orbe (2014) advocate for critical autoethnography’s usefulness in legitimating firstperson accounts of discrimination and difference as a means of critiquing colonialism, racism, sexism, nationalism, regionalism, and ethnocentrism. they further explain that critical autoethnography’s commitment to political action inflects the following aspects of critical theory: ‘to understand the lived experiences of real people in context, to examine social conditions and uncover oppressive power arrangements, and to fuse theory and action to challenge processes of domination’ (p. 20). this notion of a theory-action nexus that challenges hegemonic processes is closely related to critical race theory’s main methodology – counterstorytelling. as a form of narrative, it takes personal experience and configures it into something simultaneously politically subversive yet comprehensible. this ease of accessibility is what confers it with communicative power, making it a powerful tool of persuasion in disrupting the dominant narrative (cann & demeulenaere, 2012) and therefore, a potential transformative device for the disempowered (winter, 1989). as delgado (1989) elaborates, counterstories can ‘jar the comfortable dominant complacency that is the principal anchor dragging down any incentive for reform’ (p. 2438). prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 89 4(1) beyond this, they can also be therapeutic for the teller and for listeners from marginalised communities as the act of telling can ‘lead to healing, liberation, mental health’ (delgado, 1989, p. 2437). as it turns out, cann & demeulenaere (2012) point out that ‘[y]ou might think of counterstories as critical autoethnographies’ (p.152). in the same way that counterstorytelling is unashamedly political – ‘a method of telling the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told (e.g. those on the margins of society) … a tool for exposing, analysing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege’ (solórzano and yosso, 2002, p.32) – autoethnographies aim to ‘speak back’ by making the personal political (holman jones, adams & ellis, 2016). indeed, this political agenda is enriched through the use of critical autoethnography, particularly because of the methodology’s intimate relationship with theory. holman jones (2016), in her essay using performative and queer storytelling techniques, outlines what she considers one of critical autoethnography’s central commitments: ‘that theory and story work together in collaborative engagement’ (p. 229). this commitment is based on the view that: theory and story share a reciprocal, interanimating relationship. theory asks about and explains the nuances of an experience and the happenings of a culture; story is the mechanism for illustrating and embodying these nuances and happenings. because theory and story exist in a mutually influential relationship, theory is not an add-on to story. we cannot write our stories and then begin the search for a theory to “fit” them, outside of cultures and politics and contexts. instead, theory is a language for thinking with and through, asking questions about, and acting on—the experiences and happenings in our stories. (holman jones, 2016, p.229) as mackinlay (2019) highlights, the notion of the critical stems ‘from a place of personal-politicalpedagogical-philosophical crisis’ (p. 203), and critical autoethnography is where we tell stories (i.e., what is intuitively felt) about theory (ergo what is named and analysed) and theorised through the autoethnographic stories told. indeed, the critical in critical autoethnography reminds us that theory is ‘alive, fluid, and current’ (orbe, 2005, p.66) instead of just a given, static and autonomous set of ideas, objects, or practices (holman jones, 2016). consequently, we use ‘the vocabulary—the ideas, concepts, and languages of theory—and the mode of story—the forms, the relationships, and the worlds stories create—to tell complex, nuanced, multiple, and critically reflexive narratives’ (holman jones, 2016, p.231). tangling up theory one such option that foregrounds the ideas, concepts and languages of theory while allowing for critically constructed narratives, and that is particularly germane to ‘asian’ migrant teachers, is asiancrit. owing to critical race theory’s predilection for intellectual continuity, new perspectives and scholarship focussed on greater racial and ethnic specificity were soon born. this new wave of scholarship was conceived on the premise that racial oppressions among different minorities ought to be understood according to their unique geopolitical, temporal-historical and cultural contexts (chang, 1993). as a result, asiancrit was born. much like its critical race theory counterpart, asiancrit emerged in the 1990s in the field of law (lawrence & matsuda, 1997), drawing on counterstorying narratives as the primary tool for social change. asiancrit, like critical race theory, also shares a commitment to intersectionality, praxis and subverting privilege and oppression (iftikar & museus, 2018). the subsections below outline two specific asiancrit tenets, which also function as the foci for the next parts of the autoethnographic story. at the same time, it is crucial to remain mindful of iftikar and museus’s (2018) reminder that since the common political goal is to facilitate larger discussions of racism in society, asiancrit is intended to complement, and not replace critical race theory. indeed, while the temptation exists, to assume a complete sameness between asiancrit and critical prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 90 4(1) race theory would be to contradict their fundamental purposes. asianisation asianisation, nativism or nativistic racism is pervasive in society, which racialises asian americans (and arguably, asians writ large) in unique ways. drawing closely from higham’s (2002) work on strangers in the land, chang (1993) refers to nativistic racism as ‘an intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of its foreign connections’ (p. 1253). in particular, nativism is concerned with how, instead of acknowledging the unusually wide heterogeneity of characteristics due to diverse class, ethnic, and immigrant experiences (yu, 2006), asians tend to be subsumed into a monolithic ‘cultural’ whole based on the stereotype of / vilification as ‘the yellow peril’ and/or overachieving model minorities (espiritu, 2008; yu, 2006). chang (1993) explicates the two denotations of the term model: 1) praising superior performance as a way of denying ‘presentday discrimination against asian americans and the present-day effects of past discrimination’ as well as 2) suggesting that other minority groups emulate the model example in order to legitimise the continued ‘oppression of other racial minorities and poor whites’ (p. 1260). as a result, asian americans face a peculiar type of perpetual foreignness (chang, 1993), which tends to be ‘based more on what is perceived as not-american than on the realities of another nationality of culture’ (saito, 1997, p.80). strategic (anti)essentialism asiancrit’s tenet of strategic (anti)essentialism is based on spivak’s (1987) notion of strategic essentialism, and also has close links to feminist standpoint theory (collins, 1997). according to collins (1997), standpoint theory simultaneously emphasises the unique epistemological value of the shared stories and experiences of historically marginalised groups while accounting for individual agency within those groups. consequently, strategic (anti)essentialism highlights that asian individuals can act agentively and engage in a variety of ways that affect inherently oppressive socio-politico-economic discourses and processes. as kwok and khoo (2017) put it, the resistance of objectification through subjectivities. this key asiancrit tenet further ‘recognises that complete rejection of racial categorisation and uncritical reification of racial categories can both yield undesirable outcomes’ (museus & iftikar, 2013, p. 26). strategic (anti)essentialism is also aware that social justice praxis can have the twofold effect of advancing asian community interests while reinforcing constructions of the population, which means that research should have a twofold focus on understanding the entire community as a means of fostering unity within the racial category, while also developing involute knowledge of intra-group diversity. indeed, as liu (2009) cautions, disaggregation is important, but not at the expense of collective political voice. looking in having touched on the methodological and theoretical foundations of this paper, i provide a brief word on my positionality before i continue with the story. i am a middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied male – the firstborn grandchild of both my maternal and paternal extended families. prior to my migration journey to australia for higher education, i attended two of singapore’s most elite private schools, all while receiving a large degree of social, emotional and financial support from friends and family. as a result, i never had to worry about the colour of my skin, did reasonably well at institutionalised schooling, and was never in want of opportunity. i am fully cognisant that these privileges have limited my experiences and, on this basis, do not profess to represent the experiences of all asians or asian australians, or attempt to speak for all migrants of colour. instead, i use this paper as a space to share personal stories and reflections that may contribute to a more nuanced understanding of race and racism in the context of high school education. something’s gotta give it was nearing the end of summer, but in typical queensland fashion, the heat remained unforgiving. i was sitting at my new desk in the head of year level prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 91 4(1) office, a promotional position i had secured at the end of last year. at long last, all my hard work and industry had paid off. i had, for instance, built the college debating team from the ground up with no additional remuneration, as well as spearheaded an excellence program for my subject areas with no additional recognition. worst of all though, i had agreed to teach mathematics even though it was not one of the subject areas i was trained in – to my white school administration and colleagues, my skin colour meant that i was subsumed into a ‘cultural’ whole (yu, 2006) that magically conferred an implicit aptitude for the subject. i was finally reaping the rewards of a meritocratic system that rewarded model behaviour (chang, 1993) such as hard work, initiative, and flexibility, or so i thought at the time. in the interest of getting work done at work, i loved that my pedestalled office space was shared with only two other people (who also happened to be the two other senior secondary heads of year). there was michelle, an ‘asian’ music teacher and eternal optimist, and kourtney, a white maths teacher and classic ‘glass half-empty’ character. as i sat alone in the office engrossed in my lesson planning, i suddenly notice the usually chipper michelle glide in at the end of period four looking a little flustered. “you okay?” i venture, as michelle slumps into her chair. “yeahhh, i guess? not a great lesson, but not much you can do if you haven’t taken the class before and it’s the last lesson of the day i guess.” “were they just disinterested, or disruptive as well?” “a mixture of both! what really got my goat was how one of the boys kept asking at the top of his voice if i was from choi-nahh while i was trying to deliver content. i grew up in malaysia but have been here since high school, for goodness’ sake! that makes my experience as a migrant completely different from, say, someone from thailand who moved here just for university or someone whose parents are legitimately from china but was born here (yu, 2006) … mind you, this kid’s hand wasn’t raised either. when he realised that i wasn’t going to pause the lesson just to address his disruption at that point in time, he started sniggering to his mate beside him – sooo vexing! but okay, it’s nearly the weekend and i’m not going to let some kid with poor decision-making ruin the rest of my day! i am a picture of zen!” i chuckle as michelle rearranges her tiny frame into a meditative pose, takes a deep breath and half shuts her eyes. something tells me that this is a good time to build solidarity by sharing something similar that happened to me. i proceed to relate the story of my first day at the college and the unfortunate run-in with the three white male students. i tell her about how it all unfolded, as well as how i stood there completely aghast and at a loss for words after their little racist greeting. i tell her about how i didn’t (couldn’t) react quickly enough, and about how the white male students ran off in different directions laughing. as i conclude my story, michelle lets out a huge sigh and lets her eyes roll to the back of her head. “that’s really frustrating. i totally feel your pain, especially after today’s joyful encounter. it just ticks me off that no matter we do, we’re always going to be seen as people who don’t belong here (chang, 1993). at the same time, i guess these are such minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. i mean, us asians can’t really complain. we’re not indigenous and comparatively, we have it really good, don’t we?” she was right. us ‘asians’ did have it good – i felt a slight tinge of guilt at the fact that i had even bothered to bring my story up. what then, was the way forward? i can see clearly now i had since moved on from the state college. according to most of my anglo-australian teaching colleagues, i had struck the proverbial teaching jackpot moving from a racially diverse, lower socioeconomic coeducational state school to a predominantly white, upper-middle class independent girls’ college located in one of the most affluent suburbs in brisbane. there would probably be no need for behaviour management, and there would certainly be no necessity to address racism, right? prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 92 4(1) “alright, so are we all happy with how this game works? just to reiterate – when it’s your turn, you need to do your best to get all four questions on each of the question cards correct. your turn ends either once you answer all four questions or if you get any of them wrong, and your counter moves the corresponding number of correct spaces around the board.” my year 11 business girls nodded their heads in unison. it was that awkward last couple of lessons after assessment and before the end of the term, so i figure we’d “revise” what we had learnt earlier in the term by playing… *drumroll* the logo game. i pull out question cards about the first ford car model to be introduced in australia, the different flavour ranges of john west tuna, as well as one that asks which of the following is not a pine o cleen scent: eucalyptus, lavender, lemon lime or fresh laundry. we eventually get to the dare iced coffee question card. the opposition teams groan as i ask sarah, nikita and em what the brand of iced coffee in photo a is. “that’s soo unfair, sir! they’ve got it easy – we had such difficult questions!!” the groans reach a crescendo as i acknowledge em’s correct response and ask what the normal volume of coffee in the bottles stocked in coles supermarkets is. sarah pulls her weight and the team are immediately on to their third question. “what is the colour of dare ice coffee’s double espresso flavour – green, yellow, or black?” after much squealing and deliberation within the group, sarah (australian born, african descent and budding entrepreneur) pipes up. “look, sir, we can’t decide. i think black is too straightforward of an answer. i reckon since i’m black and nikita’s yellow, i’m just going to go with green – we’re surely not going to give the other groups a chance to steal our response!” “sarah!! you can’t just say that…” anglo-australian and future college captain em interjects. “guessing an answer? we’re already out of time anyway!” “not that… the other thing…” em’s face is completely flushed, and i soon realise that she’s chastising sarah for talking about colour, chastising her for bringing up race. having read up on colour blindness in schools (dent, 2010) the previous weekend, i was galvanised into reacting differently this time – into not being at a loss for words. in that moment, i find that my head takes a while to catch up with my heart, and flounder on with what i think could be a good personal-political-pedagogical (mackinlay, 2019) opportunity. “hmm, i don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with what sarah said, em. i mean, sarah is obviously of african descent and nikita and i are both of asian descent – i don’t see any issue with calling it like it is; after all, there’s nothing wrong with being a minority or not being white australian. it does become an issue when we start lumping all minorities into indistinct, monolithic groups though – as in assuming that everyone in that group is exactly the same (yu, 2006). even worse, conferring certain negative stereotypes or assuming some degree of deficit or lack of everyone in that particular group on the basis of that sameness (yu, 2006). that’s just going to be downright damaging for a range of minority groups (chang, 1993).” “for example, my wife constantly reminds me that i tend to be quite a reckless driver, so i suppose i fulfil the ‘asians are bad drivers’ stereotype to some extent. but, compare that with what you told me about your road trip over the holidays – how nikita was probably the smoothest and safest driver in the group. now imagine how terrible it would be if all driving examiners immediately assumed nikita was a bad driver before she even hopped behind the wheel!” i can see the well-oiled cogs in em’s brain spinning and use that as an opportunity to push a little further to resist the essentialising objectification (kwok & khoo, 2017) that em had subconsciously reified. “so yes, i think we need to be able to speak plainly about colour to be able to address inequity (dent, 2010) – if we link that back to the business context, what other ways are businesses going to be able to recognise deep-seated disadvantage among certain prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 93 4(1) communities and subsequently act on it as part of their corporate social responsibility? remember the palaszczuk government’s ‘advancing indigenous businesses’ initiative we discussed in class that day? anyway, that’s my two pence worth at least.” by this point, em’s cheeks had turned from a scarlet red to a mellow pink – i could see that she was still pondering my little speech, possibly realising in that very moment the colour discomfort that stemmed from her whiteness. however, before either of us could say anymore, we are abruptly interrupted by the lunch bell. (doing it) my way? as i mentioned earlier, i’m writing here to share my (counter)story, and in so doing, re/ad-dressing the dearth of minority (teacher) voices in the literature. in sharing this story, i have alluded to the importance of critical race theory (and asian critical race theory in particular) in equipping me for this journey at the intersection of social justice and praxis (museus & iftikar, 2013). indeed, as intimated to through the previous sections of this paper, theory is alive and fluid in the very act of storytelling (orbe, 2005), and a language for contemplating and conceptualising the very stories that are told (holman jones, 2016). when theory is used critically in tandem with autoethnography, this collaborative engagement (holman jones, 2016) foregrounds and empowers personal knowledge in a way that can promote dialogue (ellis & bochner, 2000) while addressing a personal-political-pedagogical-philosophical agenda (mackinlay, 2019). as i conclude, i would also like to take this opportunity to think and wonder out loud – to continue the dialogue (ellis & bochner, 2000) – about what i believe deserves much more meaningful deliberation – that is, if, in my vocation as a high school teacher, i truly am on the right track to ‘jar the comfortable dominant complacency’ (delgado, 1989, p. 2438) perpetuated by the ‘overwhelming presence of whiteness’ (sleeter, 2001, p. 94) that pervades the australian classroom. am i doing the very best i can at this stage to ‘fuse theory and action to challenge processes of domination’ (boylorn & orbe, 2014, p. 20) and expose ‘majoritarian stories of racial privilege’ (solórzano and yosso, 2002, p. 32)? is this how i best tackle racism and build solidarity with the goal of aboriginal sovereignty in mind? i wonder, what else would you do in my situation? prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 94 4(1) disclosure statement the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. acknowledgements the author wishes to express his deepest gratitude to associate professor elizabeth mackinlay and dr susan creagh for their guidance and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this paper. their continued willingness to give their time so generously has been very much appreciated. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) teo (2022) prism 95 4(1) references ai, b. 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(1997). alien and non-alien alike: citizenship, "foreignness," and racial hierarchy in american law. oregon law review, 76(3), 345–345. sleeter, c. e. (2001). preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools: research and the overwhelming presence of whiteness. journal of teacher education, 52(2), 94–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487101052002002 solórzano, d., & yosso, t. (2002). critical race methodology: counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. qualitative inquiry, 6(1), 23-44. vasconcelos, e. (2011). "i can see you": an autoethnography of my teacher-student self. the qualitative report, 16(2), 415-440 vass, g. (2014). the racialised educational landscape in australia: listening to the whispering elephant. race, ethnicity and education, 17(2), 176-201. https://doi:10.1080/13613324.2012.67450 vass, g. (2015). putting critical race theory to work in australian education research: "we are with the garden hose here". australian educational researcher, 42(3), 371-394. https://doi:10.1007/s13384-014-0160-1 wall, s. (2008). easier said than done: writing an autoethnography. international journal of qualitative methods, 7(1), 38-53. https://doi:10.1177/160940690800700103 yu, t. (2006). challenging the politics of the "model minority" stereotype: a case for educational equality. equity & excellence in education, 39(4), 325–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600932333 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487101052002002 https://doi:10.1080/13613324.2012.67450 https://doi:10.1007/s13384-014-0160-1 https://doi:10.1177/160940690800700103 https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600932333 prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 94 review: criminology a textbook for the next-generation of criminologists copyright © 2017-2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 1 (2): pp. 94-98 david hayes blackpool and the fylde college university centre david.hayes@blackpool.ac.uk case, s., johnson, p., manlow, d., smith, r., williams, k. (2017) criminology, oup, oxford. pp. 952 pages. this new introductory criminology textbook is a very welcome core text for both undergraduate students and educational practitioners, in terms of the scope and breadth of coverage of relevant material and the inclusion of significant innovative features. the express aim of the book is to foster active criminologists and create students as producers actively engaged in research, reflective practice and applied agendas. the text offers useful advice and guidance that covers every facet of the student experience, from pre-graduate to induction, to providing the essential study skills and attributes for undergraduate study, research, and employability in the labour market. the exploration of key themes and perspectives in criminology is supported by contemporary illustrations and applications, with selected further readings, activities and weblinks to encourage extended reading, research and scholarly activity. as might be expected for a project of such scope and magnitude, there are some areas of criminology that are relatively ‘underrepresented’ or underdeveloped, but the text goes a long way to being all-encompassing. on a critical note, the reviewer was struck by the seemingly uncritical incorporation of the employability agenda, an agenda and discourse which has ostensibly become ‘naturalised’ (fairclough, 2014) and largely unquestioned and unchallenged in today’s neo-liberal uk he institutions. the uncritical use prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 95 of employability appears incongruous with a criminology text that is otherwise explicitly concerned with developing criticality. chapter one, of part one (‘journeying into criminology’) of the new introductory undergraduate textbook ‘criminology’ by case et al (2017), is concerned with the process of ‘becoming a student’ and provides valuable insight into the variety of teaching and learning methods and different modes of assessment that the undergraduate student is likely to encounter. this chapter provides an excellent account of essential study skills, and the authors have effectively produced a he toolkit that anticipates and captures the minutiae of the undergraduate experience. not only does this chapter provide a technical manual and support guide for study, but it also acts as a useful and empowering navigational aid, charting and mapping the institutional terrain and the social and cultural processes of becoming a successful student and beyond. crucially, and this is a key feature of the text throughout, there is a great emphasis on the development and application of critical analysis to relevant material. students can sometimes lack an understanding of how to treat relevant material analytically, and the book is able to provide guidance on how to hone and practice these vital skills. part two of the text ably introduces the key principles and central dynamics of criminology as an undergraduate subject. this includes an excellent chapter (6) that provides a useful and accessible introduction to the potentially challenging area of research methods in criminology, including a detailed and critical discussion of the subjectivity-objectivity debate, epistemological, practical and ethical considerations, and the strengths and limitations of different research methodologies. this part of the text focuses on how criminological knowledge is constructed and contested, how we know what we know about the world and how we define what is ‘researchable’, with an acknowledgment that knowledge-making is, in part, reliant on questioning normative assumptions and critiquing the status quo. this is followed by a discussion of significant substantive topics, including crime and the media, hate crime and victimology, youth offending and youth justice, race-ethnicity and crime and criminal justice, gender and feminist criminology. throughout, key concepts are clearly explained and complex ideas made accessible and understandable. arguably, the inclusion of cybercrime under the topic of crime and the media could have been more prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 96 developed, perhaps deserving of a separate chapter. as the authors acknowledge, the criminological investigation of cybercrime is in itself now a vast area of criminological research and perhaps more space could have been dedicated to the understanding of cybercrime and the difficulties in policing the net. however, to its credit, the text does offer a useful introduction and gateway to the topic, which signposts some key debates and authors in the field. the section on gender and feminist criminology gives a very good account of the emergence of feminist criminology, its socio-political context, and its contributions to academic criminology and impact on criminal justice policy. the authors recognise how feminist criminology has subsequently evolved to include examinations of the relationships between crime and ideas of masculinity. this subsection could have benefited from a more developed discussion of sexualities and queer theory and gender identities that do not conform to narrow heterosexual norms. it would have been useful to bring together the diffuse, cross-disciplinary literature that examines a range of research questions around the law, crime and lgbtq sexualities. these concerns could have been consolidated and located in a subsection that reflected a more fully theorised, self-consciously ‘queer’ criminology. however, the authors do explore elsewhere the criminological research that explicitly considers and includes the criminalisation and decriminalisation of sexualities constructed as ‘deviant’, the differential enforcement of the law when applied to members of sexual minorities, the policing of queer sexualities and queer spaces, and the classification of homophobic violence as a hate crime. overall, the chapter offers an excellent account of the development of feminist scholarship in critical criminology and the large and varied body of theoretical and empirical research that it embodies. the book is also very impressive when examining contemporary strands of critical criminology, including green criminology, crimes of the powerful, convict and cultural criminology. particularly impressive here is the material on cultural criminology, which neatly captures its interdisciplinary approach and demonstrates how it creates possibilities for thinking about crime from new perspectives by examining different forms of ‘crime media’, different ways of conceiving crime, and by examining the way crime is ‘represented’ in popular culture. the book, in keeping with its critical approach to material, could have usefully provided a critique of employability, with its normative expectation that the individual can no longer prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 97 expect secure and stable employment for life, and that individuals, as ‘entrepreneurs of the self’ (mcguigan, 2014), must be prepared and mobilised for an itinerant career developing ongoing portfolios with a variety of employers. a critical pedagogical approach might view this focus on employability as being an integral feature of ‘the new spirit of capitalism’ (boltanksi and chiapello, 2007), practicing a subtle and effective means of governance, social control and exploitation, as increasingly students/ employees are responsibilised and their identities disciplined. the employability agenda was debated and criticised at its inception, by both academics and politicians, being viewed by some as an “unworkable theory” (boltanski and chiapello, 2005), yet since that time it has become increasingly dominant, driven perhaps by the recent economic crisis, deteriorating conditions in the labour market and neo-liberal projections regarding the future of work. employability has rapidly become an integral component of the new university agenda, to the point where courses that do not sufficiently embed employability at their core are deemed endangered. as employability gains in legitimacy and becomes increasingly ‘naturalised common sense’ (fairclough, 2014), it is perhaps easy to lose sight that it is a neoliberal project that devolves responsibility for economic successes and failures in the labour market, making people believe that it is due to their individual deficiencies that they can't gain employment and ‘optimise themselves’ (earle, 2011), rather than the structural failings of the capitalist labour market. critical criminologists can seek to challenge these developments and develop counter-hegemonic pedagogical strategies and narratives. a ‘positive’ interpretation of employability would view the exact calculability and predictability in the social environment, that formal rationalization brings about, as potentially empowering students by helping them understand and navigate through the complex web of institutions in order to realize the ends of their own choice, thereby giving them structure, identity, meaning and recognition. chapter 30, ‘journeying into employability and careers’, can be seen as increasing student’s ability to calculate, predict and determine the outcomes of their actions, and therefore have more control and autonomy over their learning and their lives. however, freedom, autonomy and agency can be seen as being curtailed when the micro-processes of the student experience and institutional life are so closely administered and calculable. the increasing vocationalisation of the curriculum and prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 98 instrumentalisation of knowledge and learning threatens to stifle individual initiative, subjective values, substantive rationality, serendipity and critical autonomy, in a universe where things can only be done through standardised procedures. this core introductory text is a very welcome addition to the format, for both students and teachers. there are identifiable areas that could have been further developed, and the reviewer has argued that a more critical approach could have been taken towards employability. however, the book on the whole offers a lively, lucid, insightful, accessible, understandable, engaging, rigorous and relevant introduction to criminology. links are consistently made throughout between criminological theory, research, criminal justice policy and practice, and wider historical, cultural, social, political and geographical contexts. concepts, ideas, arguments, theories and perspectives are creatively synthesised throughout. the book itself serves as a model for thinking criminologically and represents a significant and very welcome contribution to the field which will serve to broaden and develop the criminological imagination. references boltanski, l., chiapello, è. (2005), the new spirit of capitalism, london-new york: verso. earle, r. (2011) ‘prison and university: a tale of two institutions?’, british society of criminology, vol.11, pp. 2037. fairclough, n. (2014) language and power (3rd edition), london: longman. mcguigan, j. (2014) the neoliberal self, culture unbound, vol.6, pp. 223-240. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 83 think piece: who is valued and what is of value? copyright © 2017-2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 1 (2): pp. 83-88 graham hallett university of cumbria graham.hallett2@cumbria.ac.uk the subject of values is complex; this short paper will consider the values held by teachers, and who is valued within teaching. the first area to be examined will be the way in which values are expressed in the mechanisms that drive the assessment of classroom practice in initial teacher education. inevitably, such an examination cannot avoid engaging with a debate around attainment and achievement, through a consideration of what we value in teachers both as professionals and in the way that they meet the learning needs of the children and young people with whom they come into contact in their daily work. this leads to a second area, focussing on the degree to which these values are instrumental in producing and supporting a differentially weighted schooling system, where some pupils are valued more than others. in england, the teachers’ standards are described as the minimum level of practice expected of student and serving teachers when awarding qualified teacher status (dfe, 2011). the standards are presented in three parts, a preamble, followed by part one – teaching, and part two – personal and professional conduct. the preamble ‘summarises the values and behaviour that all teachers must demonstrate…’ in a little over four lines. achieving the highest standards in work and conduct is mentioned, as are subject knowledge and skills. working with parents in the best interests of pupils is also required. however, the only mention of what might be considered as values comes in the phrase that teachers should act with ‘honesty and integrity’. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 84 in part one – teaching, the only specific mention of values is in standard 1, about setting high expectations for pupils, where there is a requirement that a teacher must demonstrate, consistently, ‘the…values…which are expected of pupils’. the remaining seven standards can be seen to represent a set of exemplars connected to the knowledge and skills of teaching, such as the accurate use of assessment, managing behaviour effectively and fulfilling wider professional responsibilities. it is worth noting here that, currently, the final assessment, undertaken on school placement, of a student teacher before gaining qualified teacher status is based wholly on the part one standards, where compliance with an attainment led model is privileged. part two of the standards begins with an expectation that a teacher will demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and professional conduct, a statement that is followed by a list of attributes that define the behaviour and attitudes for the ‘required standard for conduct’. values are mentioned only once; teachers should not undermine ‘fundamental british values’, of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs. whilst these are not seen as relating specifically to initial training and are not graded as part of the award for qts, the part two standards are seen as the benchmark against which teacher conduct, or misconduct, is appraised. so, it is clear that teachers in england are expected to demonstrate compliance with a somewhat ephemeral set of ‘standards’ that lack any real engagement with the precepts of their role, for example those connected to the moral imperative of teaching, or of values such as those described in the professional standards for teachers in scotland, which include social justice, equality, openness, courage and wisdom (gtcs, 2017). there would seem to be an alignment here with the frequently stated commitment of the english government to raise standards, stated in terms of levels of attainment, rather than considering the broader achievements of children and young people, something that is difficult to measure using the metrics currently favoured within that system. it could be suggested that the teachers standards are increasingly used to frame this agenda, with a narrowed focus on driving up standards of attainment, through the uncritical use of prescriptive teaching methods driven by the acquisition, retention and testing of knowledge. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 85 such an agenda seems to be based on how children and young people are valued, rather than on a set of shared values that address the learning needs of all pupils. increasingly, pupils are seen as being above or below expected standards, or achieving or failing to achieve, arbitrary benchmarks, further disadvantaging and marginalising those who fail to reach these goals. this leads to the second area of consideration; how this affects children and young people with special educational needs and disability (send), a group of pupils who appear to lack value within the english education system, despite legislation and policies that suggest otherwise. the equality act (hmso, 2010), whilst including disability amongst the protected characteristics covered by the equality duty, treats disability differently to characteristics such as sexual orientation, race, and age, by allowing unequal treatment where required to ensure that those with send can enjoy equitable treatment. an education provider has a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that a pupil with send is not discriminated against, for example in providing aids or extra support, and such adjustments are often to be found in schools. whilst beneficial to individual pupils, the reasonable adjustment duty can be seen as both divisive and indicative of a less benign view of the value of pupils with send. those pupils who are provided with additional support or specialist aids are seen as different, requiring ‘special help’ because of their ‘special needs’. if we were to consider the concept of ‘inclusive pedagogy’ (florian, 2017), which advocates the extension of teaching and learning to meet the needs of all pupils, rather than overcoming barriers inherent in classroom practice by the provision of additional resources, the inequality of such approaches becomes apparent. in this sense it might be considered that the reasonable adjustment duty is akin to a consideration of the financial value of a pupil. this is a position that has been argued elsewhere (runswick-cole, 2011). the children and families act 2014 (dfe, 2014) requires a child with an education, health and care plan (ehcp) to be placed in a mainstream school, subject to two exemptions. the first of these rests on the wishes of the parent or guardian and the second on the provision of efficient education for others. the conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the education of pupils with significant levels of send compromises efficiency, and this is seen as unwelcome, leading to the disabling of these pupils, allowing them to be excluded from what is likely to prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 86 be their local school, a setting likely to be attended by siblings and peers from their potential friendship group. this sense of exclusion is not confined to a pupil’s access to a particular type of schooling, and it is here that the concept of separate but equal needs to be considered. schooling in england provides many examples where pupils attend schools of a particular character, for example single sex schools or special schools; whilst separate, the schools are considered to be equal in that pupils are not treated less favourably in one setting than another. this is at least arguable, if not clearly untrue, in the case of special schools. again, it must be made clear that this does not apply to all aspects of current practice, indeed many would argue that the quality of relationships, the education provided around social and personal care, and the focus on achievement in the widest sense that is a facet of most special schools is evidence of these settings providing an outstanding education. this cannot disguise the fact that this sort of education could be provided within mainstream schools for most, if not all, pupils who are currently in segregated provision, to the benefit of all in creating a more diverse society based on the sort of respect for others contained in the third of the fundamental british values discussed above, and as an indicator of the way that these pupils are valued. in some significant areas, however, less favourable treatment can be suggested. the first is in transport, where many pupils attending special schools experience journeys that are both much longer and more isolating than their counterparts in mainstream settings. the second area is linked to the first. special schools tend to have very large catchment areas; this means that children who attend those schools travel for many miles to learn alongside other children with a similarly identified ‘condition’, leaving them socially excluded on all fronts. the difficulty in engaging with a peer group centred on their home prevents the sort of extended, lifelong, friendships experienced by those who attend their local school, a situation that runs contrary to the idea of the normalisation of the lived experience of those with send. equally, school friendship groups can be impossible to maintain over the significant distances involved in special school attendance. the notion of less than equal value for those with send can be extended to what are called permanent or fixed period exclusions (fpe) from school. there has been a recent upsurge in the numbers of pupils permanently excluded from school, a significant indicator prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 87 of future failure to achieve, and of long term social disadvantage. recently published figures indicate a 44% increase in these numbers between 2012/2013 and 2015/2016; the number of pupils who experience a fpe shows a similar increase (dfe, 2017). at least in part, this rise can be attributed to schools seeing exclusion as a way of focussing resources on those most likely to succeed academically by removing difficult or challenging pupils. perhaps the most depressing statistics from the same source are those that show that a pupil with send is seven times more likely to be excluded permanently and six times more likely to be subject to a fpe than a pupil without send, with almost half of all permanent and fpes being pupils with identified send. this can be extended to funding. significant amounts of funding are available to schools, both to support specific children with ehcps, and generally to support send provision within a setting, yet it is clear that parents, teachers, governors and special educational needs coordinators (sencos) often have little understanding of how this money is being spent. this is not new; however, in an economic climate of austerity, and given the often overwhelming focus on the performativity agendas that are discussed exhaustively elsewhere, it is perhaps inevitable that there is an increasing sense of disquiet about the lack of transparency in the way that funding is used. pragmatic decisions made in increasingly difficult circumstances, about staffing arrangements, ofsted inspections, national examination results etc., may lead to increasingly compromised decision making, where the needs of the many are more likely to be addressed than those at the margins, as a form of utilitarianism replaces the commitment to social justice and equity that should lie at the heart of the professional values of the teaching profession. references dfe (2011) teachers’ standards: guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies. london: tso dfe (2014) children and families act: london: tso dfe (2017) statistical first release [sfr, 35/2017] permanent and fixed period exclusions in england 2015-2015 london: tso dfe/doh (2015) special educational needs and disability code of practice 0-25 years. london: tso florian, l (2017) the concept of inclusive pedagogy. in f. hallett and g hallett (eds) transforming the role of the senco 2nd edition. london: open university press prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 88 gtcs (2017) teachers standards in scotland accessed 10th february 2018 at www.gtcs.org.uk/professionalstandards/self-evaluation/self-evaluation-values.aspx hmso (2010) the equality act london: tso runswick-cole, k. (2011) time to end the bias towards inclusive education? british journal of special education, 38(3), 112-120. http://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/self-evaluation/self-evaluation-values.aspx http://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/self-evaluation/self-evaluation-values.aspx prism journal prism volume 5. issue 1 (2023) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article986 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article986 1 © 2023 prism, issn: 2514-5347 editorial: general issue – 2023 judith enriquez,1 david allan,2 craig hammond,3 1 school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (j.g.enriquez@ljmu.ac.uk) 2 faculty of education, edge hill university, ormskirk, uk (allandav@edgehill.ac.uk) 3 school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk) published: 09/03/2023 1. mabuhay! be alive! i greet you with this filipino greeting – the country of my birth … 'mabuhay!'. 'be alive!'. this is most apt, as i intend to bring ‘life’ into the sphere of my first encounter as a new member of the prism editorial team. i invoke in this introduction a short bio (life) of the absent-present connections that ‘bind’ me here. i gather my senses to reconcile them with the prism of life. one that does not rely on a point-of-view that is intellectually bound by the mind-energy of theorists, philosophers, and scholars. but instead, to cast a ray of light onto the life-energy of a point-of-being. it is the possibility of a poiesis, of the unconceived, unperceived, and ultimately unbound thought that i or we, with dave and craig (though they do not know this yet), along with the reviewers and authors – or contributors – to this general issue, that we are animated with being alive. i am a theory-hoarder, citation-seeker, datacollector, and problem-maker. maybe you are too. such inscriptions bound me to an identity, keep me tuned in and institutionalised but not necessarily alive. i have many viewpoints about agency, voice, literacy and other objects, subjects and not a word about life. the spaces for conversations, encounters and inquiries have hardened surfaces, rigid standards, and stifling knowledge bases. they are not conducive to life. we have been bound by learning and graduate outcomes, by employability and transferable skills (see scott, bennett, and hammond’s paper ‘silence is the sentence’: adult learners’ experiences of a co-created curriculum constructed through free writing tasks, in this issue). no matter how we try to analyse viewpoints and embrace their intersectionality, they remain or become inanimate, and ultimately, dead in our hands. it is time to commit to the living. “life will not be confined with bounded forms but rather threads its way through the world along the myriad lines of its relations, probing every crack or crevice that might potentially afford growth and movement” (ingold 2011, p124). i invite us to follow the many life-threads that emanate from the papers published here as part of this issue; and, in my case, be a kind of water-whisperer. i used to make paper boats when i was a little girl and watch these go downstream in the polluted (always fighting to flow) creek just behind the house where i grew up. my relationship with water is of course within me, running through me and keeping me alive, and yet i traversed a path away from its bio/hydro systems. instead, my research plugged me into the world of computing and technologies, of machinic and mechanistic information systems. frameworks, models, https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article986 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article986 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:j.g.enriquez@ljmu.ac.uk mailto:allandav@edgehill.ac.uk mailto:c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402214 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402214 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402214 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3868-1003 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7697-7307 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-5364 prism vol.5(1) enriquez, allan, & hammond (2023) prism 2 5(1) methods, and approaches that are allegedly ‘enlightened’. modernity made sure of this; and yet, they are far from ‘enlivened’. lucy harding’s paper researching in prison education-spaces: thinking-with posthuman, post qualitative, feminist materialism ‘beings’ to disentangle methodology (published in this issue) traverses prison spaces, by utilising visuals, textiles, and affective experiences; these facets accumulate to loosen and break away from more traditional and bureaucratic habits, that perpetuate the tendency to bind subjects – and agency – to stasis. the repetition and perpetuation of routine that entrenches forms of analyses that constrict, rather than invert inquiry. the creative, non-predictable, and creative elements of diffractive writing – addressed here in this general issue – feature, and mutate, in a number of ways across the array of papers. for example, mollie baker’s paper beyond binaries and before becoming: reconsidering resistance in uk higher education, utilises diffractive notions of resistance that take form within and across higher education environments – not least of which, the notion of affective resistance. i was in iloilo, philippines in july 2022. i have a community literacy project in a remote farming community there. it's not easy to accept the generosity of water in the islands of the philippines. i have been confronted with the precarious life of communities who live near water and the child labour of corn planting and hand washing clothes. drinking water is always in a bottle. water is life-threatening there. i have seen colourful seashells and the water produce lobsters, a variety of fishes, crabs, clams, oysters, etc.taste delicious. seafood reminds me of my father who died in 2003. he was a fishmonger. water has given me life, loved ones, stories to tell, memories to remember and dilemmas to come to terms with or simply feel with, all at once. i have many attachments (life-threads) with water, a hydrophilia perhaps. i want to attend to these attachments. how do i proceed when i am entangled with the wares and wires of technologies, habits of the mind and ways of unliving? mabuhay is an invitation, a refraction of being towards living systems that bind me (us) to a biosphere. 2. the emergence of stories pete atherton’s paper leaving the chasm behind: autoethnography, creativity and the search for identity in academia, represents the increasingly popular theme of autoethnography (as research method) across various prism papers and issues. atherton presents and analyses qualitative primary data in the form of an autoethnographic study, with a view to helping educators understand digital literacies in a time of uncertainty and flux. this research approach is further reflected in the paula stone et al., paper ‘care-less whispers’ in the academy during covid-19: a collaborative autoethnography. in this paper, the authors raise important (and often hidden) questions – through autoethnographic dialogues – about social justice, diversity and inclusion, and the intersectionality of class and gender. these experiences and narratives are further filtered through the lens of female academics with / from a working class heritage. the theme of academics with / from a working class heritage extends from – and across – the stone et al., article, to the emma gilaspy et al., paper hard graft: collaborative exploration of working class stories in shaping female educator identities. as with the stone paper, gilaspy et al., adopt a collaborative autoethnography approach to share the stories of seven female educators (drawn together from a variety of health and social care disciplines). the revealing insights share the lived experiences of female academics with working-class roots, and the ways in which this heritage shapes (and has shaped) their values and identities. this prism general issue also includes two articles that address and discuss the impact of forest schooling and outdoor education with ange garden’s piece constructions of space: exploring photographic images in forest school using and exploring unstructured interviews in relation to children’s feelings and meanings associated with images captured during activities in a forest school space. the think piece by ziad dabaja and simge yılmaz uysal on forest school and its effect on the community: a brief review. in this short manuscript, the authors draw on contemporary literature to develop and emphasise a demarcating and https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401219 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401219 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0401219 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article418 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 prism vol.5(1) enriquez, allan, & hammond (2023) prism 3 5(1) associated differentiating characteristics between forest schooling and outdoor education. furthermore, they briefly introduce the benefits and impact of the outdoor educational concept for the children involved, but the ways in which it can positively affect educators and their pedagogies, along with wider family dynamics. finally, we have a review by anne-marie smith of anke schwittay’s book creative universities: reimagining education for global challenges and alternative futures (2021). as smith tells us, the pages of this book ‘buzz with hope’, creative vision and radical possibilities, and invite academics and educators to do teaching differently; to shake up our learning spaces and keep asking questions. both the review and schwittay’s book are well worth a read, as they both articulate a call to arms, to have courage, take risks, cause disturbance, be creative, and reshape the ways in which we engage in and with education. 3. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 5. acknowledgements dave allan and craig hammond would like to welcome judith enriquez to the prism editorial team, and to thank her for the enchanting and evocative contribution to this editorial. the editorial team would like to thank all of the prism section editors, reviewers and authors for their dedication and support in bringing these ecelectic academic papers to fruition. 6. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its contentwith no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess atabase: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism vol.5(1) enriquez, allan, & hammond (2023) prism 4 5(1) 7. references ingold, t. (2011). being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. london: routledge. prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302210 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302210 1 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 editorial: the mission of integration *francis farrell,1 vini lander,2 ümit yildiz3 1 faculty of education, edge hill university, ormskirk, uk (farrellf@edgehill.ac.uk). 2 carnegie school of education, leeds beckett university, leeds, uk (vini.lander@leedsbeckett.ac.uk). 3 manchester institute of education, university of manchester, manchester, uk (umit.yildiz@manchester.ac.uk). received: 04/10/2021 accepted: 22/10/2021 published: 11/11/2021 1. genealogy ‘i set out from a problem expressed in the terms current today and i try to work out its genealogy. genealogy means that i begin my analysis from a question posed in the present’, (foucault, in garland, 2014, p. 367). the papers featured in this special edition set out from ‘a problem in the present’, the problem of a civic nationalist agenda in uk government education policy and practice which has redefined the relationship between educators and students through the requirements of the prevent duty and fundamental british values. to work out its genealogy, we set out a brief chronological outline of what we characterise as the civic nationalist agenda in uk education policy and practice before we turn to the critical perspectives offered by the papers in this special edition. the geopolitical transformations that took place in the wake of the 9/11 al qaeda attacks have been marked by the end of multiculturalism in many western democracies and the emergence of a defensive, exclusionary politics of national identity. political debates have pivoted around the incompatibility of islam with democratic values and widespread anxiety about refugees and asylum seekers, ‘bearers of alien customs’ (virdee and mcgeever, 2018, p.7) crossing the borders of the ‘western citadel’ (beck, 2002, p.49). in europe and the uk, the immigration debate has led to the introduction of citizenship tests, language and civic values exams and other tests of naturalization and compatibility with western liberal values. in the uk this hardening of national discourse has shaped educational policy and practice effectively making education a securitized site of the domestic war on terror. since tony blair’s premiership (19972007), uk government policy making has focussed on shared national values and community cohesion to address the problems of communities characterised as living ‘parallel lives’ (cantle, 2001). in his 2011 munich speech conservative prime minister david cameron argued for ‘muscular liberalism’ in place of the ‘passive tolerance’ of multiculturalism (cameron, gov.uk, 2011). this policy discourse portrays the uk as under attack by fundamentalist unreason, but from a critical perspective it translates as the racialization of islam and governmental disavowal of pluralism. the role of the state has shifted from ‘care taker’ to https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302210 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302210 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:farrellf@edgehill.ac.uk mailto:vini.lander@leedsbeckett.ac.uk mailto:umit.yildiz@manchester.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5046-7077 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6570-1065 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8619-9297 prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 2 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 ‘traffic cop’ (goldberg in kapoor et al, 2013). the message conveyed by shared national values is integrationist, ‘become one of us’, your crime is ‘not to be like us’ (deleuze and guattari, 2013, p. 208). in 2012 the introduction of fundamental british values as a requirement of the regulatory framework of the teachers’ professional standards (dfe, 2014) and the imposition of the prevent duty (2015) on teachers to give due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism altered the relationship between teachers and students, so that teachers have become, in law, the de facto instruments of state security. from january 2015 schools could be graded as ‘inadequate’ if inspectors found weaknesses in their spiritual, moral, social and cultural (smsc) provision, ‘so that pupils are intolerant of others and/or reject any of the core values fundamental to life in modern britain’. by july 2015, to be graded ‘outstanding’ by ofsted, schools had to demonstrate that the ‘promotion of fundamental british values [is] at the heart of the school’s work’. significantly there has been no public democratic debate about what makes fundamental british values british or indeed what britishness is. instead, the definition was taken from government counter terrorist legislation which also defines extremism as opposition to fundamental british values (hm government, 2015). these developments are part of a wider civic nationalist (ignatieff, 1993) turn in education policy that opposes those who adhere to state sanctioned civic values to those who are positioned as suspect because of cultural difference. despite the spike in reports of racial and religious hate crime in the period leading up to the uk government’s referendum to leave the european union, the civic nationalist turn has showed no signs of relenting as the following examples taken from the speeches of ofsted chief, amanda spielman demonstrate. in 2018 spielman, stated that young people in britain are vulnerable to exploitation by extremists and therefore require the teaching of british values, because, ‘if we leave these topics to the likes of the edl and bnp on the one hand and islamists on the other, then the mission of integration will fail’ (spielman, in weale, 2018). in her 2019 speech at the wellington festival of education, she reiterated this message stating that ‘it is so important that all these values are taught, understood and lived’ and that ‘school is how and where we make sure that every young british citizen ends up with the same level of understanding’ (spielman, 2019). the new civic nationalism is marked by contradiction, on the one hand espousing religious tolerance and on the other requiring ofsted inspectors to question female muslim primary school children about the muslim veil. it is a paradoxical liberalism that operates through spielman’s warning that religious minorities cannot expect ‘cultural entitlements’ (weale, 2018). in practice, these policy developments amount to an intensification of the state’s gaze upon nonchristian, primarily muslim students and faith schools that it seeks to discipline and regulate. 2. a critical juncture as we write this editorial, we find ourselves at a critical juncture in politics and education. the true extent of structural racial and class inequalities in the uk have been revealed in the covid pandemic by a disproportionately high number of deaths and hospitalizations amongst ethnic minority communities as reported by the office for national statistics (ons, 2020). similarly, the black lives matter movement and the anti-racist activism that followed the murder of george floyd in the us by a member of the police has also thrust racial politics into the forefront of british political life and yet the government’s response to these racial crisis events has been to affirm its commitment to civic nationalism, through an authoritarian turn best exemplified by the dfe guidance published in september 2020 on how to ‘plan your relationships, sex and health curriculum’ (dfe, 2020). as a policy artefact, the document demonstrates the contradictions in government and liberal discourse. the guidance states that curricula must include ‘lgbt content’, but it also rules out involvement from any prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 3 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 external agencies who might demonstrate, ‘a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow…capitalism’ (dfe, 2020). a few weeks before the document was published the government had added the environmentalist pressure group extinction rebellion to its list of extremist ideologies to be reported to the prevent programme, although this prohibition was withdrawn, the context of the guidance was characterised as a culture war by its critics (busby, 2020). the irony that lies in the contradictions between government equalities and diversity rhetoric and the reality of racial injustice is demonstrated by attacks on critical race theory by senior ministers, including the equalities minister kemi badenoch. in october 2020, badenoch stated that teachers who presented the idea of white privilege as a fact to their students were breaking the law, describing critical race theory (crt) as, ‘an ideology that sees my blackness as victimhood and their whiteness as oppression’ (badenoch in weale, 2020). in response to the government proscription of certain resources and views, including crt, leading academics at the ucl ioe wrote a letter to the guardian newspaper expressing their concerns (weale, 2020). the ucl letter captures the concerns of progressive educators at a time of national and international crisis, and begs the question, how has the national state education system arrived at a position where teachers’ professional status, autonomy and agency have been so reduced and a narrow, prescriptive initial teacher training (itt) curriculum threatens to undermine the foundations of initial teacher education, the integrity of progressive research focussed higher education provision, academic freedom and the subjectivities of pre service and in service teachers? 3. critical perspectives the papers in this collection offer a critical counter narrative to the integrationist government discourse of the past two decades. some of the papers take a critical genealogical backwards glance to reveal the power effects of british values and the prevent agenda on teachers when they were first introduced, others take us to the heart of the problem in the present and raise critical questions about how this discourse might be troubled, adapted or reappropriated by educators and students. importantly, what all the papers do is bring new empirical data and new insights to the academy which continue to trouble and interrogate the incorrigible ‘themandus binaries’ mobilized by the mission of integration in education, thus providing the basis for further research and critical debate. in the themed research papers bryan and revell, farrell, habib and jerome et al draw from empirical material including interviews with teachers and students to offer fresh insights into enactments of prevent and british values in educational sites and settings. a. themed research papers in the first article hazel bryan and lynne revell present an original empirical research study of the relationship between education leadership styles and the enactment of fundamental british values. their study is unique and an important contribution to policy literature on educational leadership, as it captures the voices and the dilemmas experienced by school leaders at a time when the policy was first introduced, and practitioners were unsure about how it would impact. the data is rich, drawing from interviews with senior leaders in forty-one primary schools and nineteen secondary settings. bryan and revell examine the teachers’ responses through the lens of leadership theory. the data reveals teachers ‘grappling’ with the policy, as the section on counter factual scenarios demonstrates, indicating that the senior leaders prioritised the reputation of their school and relationships with parents and governors in relation to teacher behaviour in scenarios where teachers might be deemed to be undermining fundamental british values. in the second paper, francis farrell offers an original application of deleuze and guattari’s theories of racism as a critical methodological framework for analysis of fundamental british values. drawing from deleuze and guattari’s concept of the white man prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 4 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 face, their image for hegemonic whiteness, farrell argues that the british values discourse is an assimilatory device that works to identify those it has marked as racial deviants to reintegrate them through the soft disciplinary techniques the state has at its disposal such as channel, the multi-agency programme, required under the prevent duty, which identifies and supports individuals considered to be ‘at risk’ (home office, 2019). farrell illustrates these processes at work with reference to empirical data that demonstrates the performative function of british values policy as it transforms racialised student subjects into ‘ones to watch’. this paper offers researchers another methodological tool to interrogate civic nationalist education policy and it concludes by calling for both new theoretical and activist associations between anti-racist educators and students. sadia habib’s paper is a highly original study that addresses a major gap in the literature on fundamental british values, by taking a focus on identity and belonging in the cultural heritage sector. drawing from her experience working with young people in british museums as a museum educator, habib focusses on the need to create safe spaces for young people from diverse ethnic and class backgrounds to disentangle the connections between colonialism and the museum as a cultural site. drawing from her experiences as the ‘our shared cultural heritage’ project coordinator at manchester museum, habib makes a compelling case for the museum as the space where young people can interrogate ideas of nation to trouble hegemonic constructions of britishness and reclaim agency. habib utilizes critical pedagogy, offering educators a valuable model for a transformative, democratic alternative to the narrow, disciplinary contours of the british values discourse. in the next paper, lee jerome, anna liddle and helen young address the critical problem of the present day posed by the capacity of fundamental british values policy enactments to alienate and marginalise minority students. jerome, liddle and young draw from their highly innovative curriculum project, the ‘deliberative classroom’ to engage students in a critical and deliberative discussion of fundamental british values as political concepts, particularly when examined in relation to everyday politics. deliberative discussion and exploratory talk rather than competitive debate form the basis of this approach. jerome et al draw from fascinating empirical data collected in their observations conducted for the deliberative classroom project. they found that the young people in one of the secondary school settings they were researching, avon school, were able to engage in civic rather than civic nationalist debate about the topic of religious freedom. this paper is a potent example of how researchers working in collaboration with students and teachers can reclaim and recalibrate the british values discourse to create the potentials for classrooms that recognise agency and reflect nodding’s principles of care about and for others (noddings, 2002). there is much for educators and teacher educators to take forward into their own practice from this innovative and original paper. in the final paper in the themed research pieces, heather smith, provides a critical overview of government and government agencies’ statutory and regulatory policy documents concerned with fundamental british values and prevent. smith uses the critical concept of racist nativism as her lens to show that education policy cannot be disaggregated from relations of dominance and subordination in society. fundamental british values, in this analysis, constructs a discourse of exclusionary ‘nonnativeness’ and a racialised hierarchy that positions muslims and other minorities, their culture and beliefs, as deficit, alien and ‘not quite as good’ as british values. smith offers a detailed analysis of guidance on eal (english as an additional language) teaching to argue that speakers of languages other than english are positioned as deficit, revealing the deeply embedded and normalised discourse of british superiority mobilized at all levels of civic nationalist education policy making. smith’s paper provides researchers and students with a valuable and critical methodological tool with which to problematise prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 5 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 british values in education and is another original contribution to methodology featured in this special edition. b. themed think pieces in the next section, themed think pieces offer reflexive and theoretical perspectives on fundamental british values and the civic nationalist policy, providing researchers and students with provocations and prompts to guide their investigations of fundamental british values in education. in the first piece, ‘my religion is important’, karamat iqbal draws from his own experiences and research in birmingham, the land of the trojan horse, to reaffirm the importance of religiously literate dialogue between religious communities in a context where religion has become racialised and conflated with extremism. jane mcdonnell’s paper is a much-needed critical literature review surveying the theoretical and methodological approaches currently available to researchers. mcdonnell concludes her review with reflections on the value of radical democracy in the classroom. in many respects her conclusions resonate with the theory and methods developed in jerome et al’s deliberative classroom, as both approaches advocate for an approach to democratic education that draws from experiences of democracy in everyday life. in the last of the think pieces, umit yildiz draws from his own experiences as an anti-racist activist in a paper that looks critically at the development of the shared values discourse through an anti-racist analysis that situates british values within a longestablished tradition of colonialism. in many respects, yildiz’s paper is the most appropriate discussion piece to close this special issue. yildiz reminds readers of the role of activism and resistance in the anti-racist education project and he highlights what is becoming a feature of both research into and the enactment of british values policy in recent yearsacceptance and normalisation of fundamental british values in policy and practice. referring to the work of academics who argue that fundamental british values can provide a platform for the discussion of equalities issues, yildiz underlines the dangerous discriminatory effects of even the subtlest attempts to reinterpret fundamental british values. 4. conclusion we began this editorial with foucault’s conceptualisation of genealogy. genealogy was, for foucault, a way of using texts, artefacts and other historical materials to trace the troublesome associations and lineages that produce the problems we face in the present. foucault’s method aimed to trouble what so easily becomes taken for granted, by revealing the normalising and disciplinary practices concealed by discourse. it is our aspiration that the papers in this issue will inform practice, theory and methodology and energise debates to problematise the increasingly ‘taken for granted’ and normalised requirements of prevent and fundamental british values. education in a liberal plural democracy should be supporting students’ critical capacities and political agency. ironically, as papers in this collection have shown, the contradictory messages of fundamental british values policy run the risk of undermining this core educational and democratic goal. to return to foucault, this is the task of critical scholarship, to unmask the effects of power as it operates obscurely, invisibly through the working of policies that appear neutral, independent and benign (foucault, in chomsky and foucault, 2006). prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 6 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 5. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 6. acknowledgements the editors wish to thanks the authors who so generously shared their research and made this special edition possible. 7. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2021) farrell, lander & yildiz (2021) prism 7 © 2021 prism, issn: 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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/27/uk-schools-told-not-to-use-anti-capitalist-material-in-teaching https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/912093/2019-02-12_channel_panel_fact_sheet_ra.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/912093/2019-02-12_channel_panel_fact_sheet_ra.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/912093/2019-02-12_channel_panel_fact_sheet_ra.pdf https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/whyhaveblackandsouthasianpeoplebeenhithardestbycovid19/2020-12-14 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/whyhaveblackandsouthasianpeoplebeenhithardestbycovid19/2020-12-14 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/whyhaveblackandsouthasianpeoplebeenhithardestbycovid19/2020-12-14 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/whyhaveblackandsouthasianpeoplebeenhithardestbycovid19/2020-12-14 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielman-at-the-wellington-festival-of-education https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielman-at-the-wellington-festival-of-education https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/13/education-experts-counter-government-attack-on-critical-race-theory https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/13/education-experts-counter-government-attack-on-critical-race-theory https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/13/education-experts-counter-government-attack-on-critical-race-theory prism journal prism early view (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 1 © 2022 prism issn: 2514-5347 book review: creative universities: reimagining education for global challenges and alternative futures (2021) anke schwittay; 200 pages; bristol university press isbn: 978-1529213652 (pbk), £19.99 anne-marie smith school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (a.smith3@ljmu.ac.uk) received: 28/06/2022 accepted for publication: 21/07/2022 published: 21/07/2022 1. review the book ‘creative universities’ by anke schwittay (2021) is unlike any other academic text i have read about teaching; the pages buzz with hope, creative vision and radical possibilities, and it left me wanting to do my teaching differently, to shake up our learning spaces, and to keep asking questions. this book is a call to arms in which schwittay invites us to have courage, take risks, cause disturbance, be creative, and alongside our students reshape the way we engage in education via a critical-creative pedagogy (hereafter c-cp). the words and ideas laid on the pages nudge us into reflections about our identity as academics, asking us difficult questions: how courageous can we be? what risks are we willing to take? in the words of one of the author’s students, ‘university-taught brains are not geared towards creativity first and foremost’ (p.44). being creative teachers and academics requires us to change our traditional and established ways of working; to do so, means that we need to begin with our selves before we can encourage and guide our students to play, create, disrupt and question. schwittay gently and generously offers us a roadmap towards this collaborative shift. in the author’s words, her book is her own ‘performative ontological project of making hope and possibility more present, credible and viable in he classrooms’ (p.16). a professor in anthropology and global development at the university of sussex, schwittay begins with an ‘invitation’ chapter, confessing that it took courage for her to write about her own teaching, something social scientists tend not to do. shaped by her journey as an academic in anthropology and development / global studies, the text is richly imbued with her experiences of teaching and researching in diverse cultural contexts from latin america to new zealand. this journey includes a three-year period of https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402211 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-universities mailto:a.smith3@ljmu.ac.uk smith (2022) prism 2 early view data collection with students – via journey interviews – and conversations with colleagues at sussex university as well as in bolivia. written during the pandemic in 2020, this book began with questions: from the postgraduate student who asked ‘whether there was any hope left for development’, to one of the student interviewees who felt ‘defeated’ knowing there were no direct solutions to ‘difficult issues’. the disillusionment she saw in her students is what drove schwittay to ask her own questions such as: ‘what if my teaching could offer students openings where they could see only closure?’ (p.2). schwittay’s answer is developed across the chapters of the book, framed by what she calls a criticalcreative pedagogy (c-cp). central to this approach is the goal of teaching students not only to deconstruct but also to rebuild (p.3). there is a wonderful visual representation of schwittay’s c-cp called the ‘guiding star’ (p.3) illustrating the four interweaving strands associated with this pedagogy: whole person learning (experiential); creative methods from design and the arts; problem-based praxis; and critical hope. the first chapter ends with a kind invitation to the reader ‘to make this book their own’ (p.22), to imagine how it could be useful in your own area of teaching – with questions such as ‘which key concepts do i want my students to learn about in a critical-creative way?’ it’s a shame that subsequent chapters did not offer similar reflective questions. whilst the companion website offers a wealth of practical materials (see comments below), a series of prompts for reflection throughout the chapters might appeal to readers not engaged in critical pedadogy and praxis but who will undoubtedly be inspired to move in that direction after reading this hopeful book. a useful table (p.21) gives us a summary of main chapter insights listing key terms / processes and how each chapter addresses a specific challenge explored in relation to knowledge, orientations and politics. for example, chapter 3 ‘designing futures’ presents knowledge about ‘wicked problems’ and design thinking, orients us to ambiguity, humility and empathy, and emphasies a politics of resource equalities. the invitation is followed by a chapter offering insights into selected philosophies from the canon of critical pedagogy. schwittay takes us on a conceptual journey from paolo freire to arturo escobar. chapters 2 to 6 make up the essential material of the book; each of the chapters begin with a narrative, written in italics, offering a story to frame the subsequent text. for example, chapter 6 opens ‘on a wintry day in february 2020’ and describes a teach-out during the faculty strike at sussex university. these informal openings lean into the personal and the ‘lived’ experiences of the author and her students in teaching spaces as well as other events such as the student walk-out of an economics class at harvard university (p. 79). each chapter follows same format: the first part lays out theoretical ideas framing the context, with the second part describing aligned creative teaching activities. each of these activities offer deep insight into the praxis of c-cp. organised around social, ecological and economic challenges (and reflected in diverse modules taught at sussex by schwittay and her colleagues), students are guided to imagine different futures: critically creative activities include setting up a cooperative enterprise, body mapping, designing and creating built scenarios of alternative futures , designing and playing games, mapping alternative campus spaces, taking part in walking seminars, and developing an activist campaign. it is clear that these collaborative activities enable students to question established knowledge and paradigms through play, and to deconstruct any assumptions that they bring with them to university (particularly pertinent to the context of students coming to do development studies, where assumptions are often shaped by saviourism a desire to ‘save the world’ and help ‘poor people’ in the global south). descriptions of the activities are further enhanced by reflections and comments from students, highlighting the depth of learning which for one was seen to remove them ‘from the grips of theory’ (p.124). based on the author’s research of her own teaching practice at sussex university, the ideas offered here do not propose to solve issues or problems, but are guided by a ‘working towards’ approach (p.13); this practice is, smith (2022) prism 3 early view in schwittay’s words, ‘gradual, modest and meandering’ – a hopeful and refreshing alternative to the corporate model in our universities that empahsises output and leaves little room for colourful ambiguity. this is not a ‘how to’ book about creative teaching practice; to a large extent i wish it was and on initial reading my one niggle with the book was the uncreative format and presentation. such a rich text would have appealed to me more if the chapters had been designed with friendly user-access in mind – e.g., text boxes summarising the creative activities and, as mentioned earlier, reflection points for the reader, ideas and tips for practice. however, the discovery of the book’s companion website has amply satisfied this wish; if you are looking for some detailed ‘how to’ tips, i highly recommend the website which in my view enhances and brings the praxis elements of the book alive.1 reflecting the collaborative spirit of the book, the website offers examples of teaching materials related to the activities described in the book, including activity guides, module handbooks, and related readings, as well as examples of student work and quotes. however, i think that these short summaries in relation to each teaching activity would also have worked well in the book. mirroring the book, the activities are organised around social, ecological and economic alternatives. this generous offering more than makes up for what i consider a lack of ‘creative pointers’ in the book! schwittay’s writing style is eloquent – every word matters. there are no frills. as a reader i found this a challenging and dense text , and in places i found myself skipping over some of the theoretical ideas to get to the stories of students engaged in creative learning. in addition to her vast global experiences that have informed this book, the more recent and focused research for ‘creative universities’ comes from schwittay’s 30 ‘journey interviews’ with her undergraduate students, as well as interviews with colleagues. insights and comments from students add a wonderful layer to the text. scwhittay’s diverse group of students respond to the challenges with enthusiasm, clearly fired up by the prospects of disrupting the norm 1 https://www.creativeuniversities.com/ and stepping out of their comfort zones. one student engaged in climate activism (chapter 6) says that ‘university is the perfect space to disrupt and partake in activism. it allows you to be radical’ (p.150).given the history of the university of sussex as well as the promience of green politics in brighton, it is easy to see how this kind of activism is possible there. the radical teaching activities described in schwittay’s book are set against the backdrop of a university with a history of radical protest, and also within context of global and international development studies – courses that naturally lend themselves to disruptions and alternatives. remembering schwittay’s invitation in chapter one, i kept wondering “how would this work in a school of education and childhood studies, where the majority of students are home/white?”. i imagine that schwittay’s response would be “of course it can work; it just takes courage!”. though i do wonder to what extent this courage might be influenced by the profile of students in our classes; in schwittay’s case she has the privilege of working with students from a wide range of countries, who also are committed to international development, as well as students already heavily involved in collective action such as occupy and extinction rebellion, and the #yosoy132 student protests in mexico. taken together, these chapters do a thorough job of telling us about the conceptual and practical ideas framing a certain approach and then show us how creative activities can teach students how to transgress, question and formulate critical questions across disciplinary traditions and boundaries – this questioning is central to the c-cp. such a pedagogy reflects freirean ideas of ‘epistemological curiosity’ (freire 1997), which he defined as a dynamic process experienced in the body rather than just the mind. the learning activities described by schwittay clearly reflect this philosophy, such as engaging students in body-mapping (ch.2) to explore questions of power as well as personal feelings and positionality. the author’s ideas are strongly influenced by those of gibson-graham (2008) around performative https://www.creativeuniversities.com/ smith (2022) prism 4 early view elements of academic practice, where spaces can be created for a “pedagogical politics of possibilities” (p.8). putting a more positive spin on the idea of ‘weak theory’, schwittay proposes what she calls ‘generative theory’ (p.8), which offers an experimental approach to global challenges. every word laid down on the page by schwittay contains depth, and i found myself returning again and again to phrases that transmit profound thinking and inspiration. for example, defining her generative theorizing, she writes: ‘it seeks connections and collaborations and is willing to consider rather than judge. it embraces the unexpected, celebrates and surprises and is interested in building up rather than tearing down. generative theory enables a criticalcreative pedagogy by ensuring that its critical component does not overwhelm its creative sibling, putting both on an equal footing where they can nurture each other.’ (p.9) (my emphasis). this is radical hope indeed, a vision for a university culture that can bring us together in curiosity that nurtures explorations, rather than compete for outputs and star ratings. part of the research for this book was done in bolivia, and in the chapter ‘repairing ecologies’ schwittay introduces the latin american concept of ‘buen vivir’: rooted in indigenous belief systems that offer alternatives to western worldviews, ‘buen vivir’ (literally ‘good living’) became part of government policy during the presidency of morales, and led to radical initiatives such as the rights of madre tierra (mother earth). these broader insights and learnings from indigenous knowledge are what add depth to schwittay’s book, and teach us true meanings of what it is to be and act as a global citizen. as such this book reads like a manifesto and it leaves the readerenriched and inspired. we must always keep learning and shifting and be willing to change, and schwittay’s book gives us the impetus and the scope for possibilities. whatever our discipline in he, we are all somehow involved in preparing students to play their part in the world beyond academia. we live in a troubled world, and schwittay’s model of criticalcreative pedagogy offers a hopeful roadmap for any educator concerned with social justice, or who just seeks alternatives to working within the corporate driven machine of he. however, before we can create projects for our students we need to develop as critical creative educators. this involves far more than coloured paper and glue sticks: such an educator must be equipped with courage, confidence, commitment and energy. above all, risk taking. a key point made by schwittay is that all creative activities also need meticulous planning as well as clear guidance for students. the penultimate chapter captures the essence of the biggest obstacle to c-cp: the corporate university machine. in a climate where employability is the mot du jour in he, schwittay argues that a pattern of ‘deliver and assess’ merely replicates freire’s notion of ‘banking style’ education. in the context of global studies, critical-creative teaching leads students to question the shortcomings of their previous job aspirations – e.g., is working for an international ngo part of the problem? (p.132) the concluding chapter capstones responds to freire’s call that ‘hope is not enough – we need critical hope’ (cited p.157), by offering examples of larger scale ‘utopian initiatives’ within the themes of opening up learning, sustain-able campuses and reimagining universities. each of these projects build on and draw insights from all preceding chapters, but by posing deeper questions schwittay offers these examples as ‘jumping-off points’ for us to imagine possibilities in our own disciplinary contexts. i drafted this review on the day the supreme court in the us overturned roe vs wade (24.6.22). to say that these are times that call for radical hope is something of an understatement; as educators we have an ethical responsibility to imagine and enact alternative futures. anke schwittay clearly walks her talk (p.7): if we care about the real work of education in these troubled times, we would do well to follow in her footsteps. smith (2022) prism 5 early view 2. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 3. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank craig hammond for his guidance and comments in drafting this review. 3. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 4. references freire, p. (1997). pedagogy of the heart. new york: continuum. gibson-graham, j.k. (2008). diverse economies: performative practices for other worlds. progress in human geography, 32 (5), pp613-632. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22sort%22%3a%5b%7b%22created_date%22%3a%7b%22order%22%3a%22desc%22%7d%7d%5d%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%2c%22track_total_hits%22%3atrue%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22sort%22%3a%5b%7b%22created_date%22%3a%7b%22order%22%3a%22desc%22%7d%7d%5d%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%2c%22track_total_hits%22%3atrue%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22sort%22%3a%5b%7b%22created_date%22%3a%7b%22order%22%3a%22desc%22%7d%7d%5d%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%2c%22track_total_hits%22%3atrue%7d prism journal prism (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 1 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 forest school and its effect on the community: a brief review ziad f. dabaja,1 simge yilmaz uysal2 1 univ paris est creteil, imager, creteil, france (dabajaziad@gmail.com) 2 mersin university, elementary and early childhood education, mersin, turkey (simgeyilmaz@mersin.edu.tr) received: 23/12/2021 accepted for publication: 11/05/2022 published: 06/10/2022 abstract forest school and similar outdoor nature-based education programmes have been spreading across different parts of the world. in this short manuscript, we draw on the literature to shed light on the demarcating characteristics of this distinctive form of outdoor education. furthermore, we expand on the work by dabaja (2022a; 2022b) to briefly introduce not only the impact of this educational concept on the involved children, but also the way it affects the educators and their pedagogies as well as the dynamics among the children’s family members and their connection to the outdoors. we then conclude by proposing a set of research-related recommendations to explore the full potentiality of the forest school concept. keywords: forest school, outdoor education, impact, educators, community 1. introduction ever since it was brought from the scandinavian context into the uk toward mid 1990 by a staff from bridgwater college, somerset (maynard, 2007), forest school has been gaining ground all over the world (knight, 2016). in this paper, we draw on the literature to concisely demarcate the distinctive features of the forest school concept. we then summarize the outcomes of reviews of the literature on the impact of forest school on the involved children (dabaja, 2022a; 2022b), before presenting what was proposed in terms of its effect on the educators and their pedagogies as well as on the children’s families. we conclude by proposing a set of research-related recommendations aiming at constructing a deeper understanding of this promising educational concept and explore its full potentiality. 2. demarcating forest school cree and mccree (2013) suggested that “establishing a collective idea of [forest school] practice undergoes continuing debate” (p. 33). in fact, there is an ongoing discussion on what forest school is and should be (knight, 2018; leather, 2018; waite & goodenough, 2018). still, based on the literature, forest school can be perceived as a form of outdoor education through which children frequently visit a specific natural place for an extended period across the seasons to engage in a multitude of outdoor activities. in this definition, the natural place can consist of “urban greenspace[s], playgrounds, forests, creeks, prairies, mountains, shoreline, and tundra” (child & nature alliance of canada [cnac], n.d., para. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article642 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:dabajaziad@gmail.com mailto:simgeyilmaz@mersin.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5092-8670 prism (2022) dabaja & yılmaz-uysal (2022) prism (2022) 2 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 1) in addition to adapted desert settings (takriti, wright, alhosani, & schofield, 2020). although the term “forest school” is prevalently used worldwide, especially in the uk (forest school association, n.d.), other names are also employed to refer to outdoor nature-based educational programs that adopt similar philosophy. among these terms are udeskole in denmark (waite, bølling, & bentsen, 2016); i ur och skur (rain or shine) in sweden (robertson, 2008); waldkindergarten in germany (kane & kane, 2011); bush kinder (elliott & chancellor, 2014) and bush school (cumming & nash, 2015) in the australian context, forest/nature school in canada (cnac, n.d.), and desert school in the uae (takriti et al., 2020). beside adopting different names, leaders and facilitators of this outdoor nature-based education form, from different parts of the world, have adjusted the implementation of their programs “to integrate better with their own cultural and geographical frameworks” (knight, 2018, p. 21). this indicates the paramount influence of the context in which forest school id being delivered (knight, 2018; leather, 2018; waite et al., 2016). 3. the forest school impact on children the literature review conducted by dabaja (2022a; 2022b) revealed that forest school can help promote the children’s: a. social and cooperative skills which “refers to the children’s ability to work cooperatively, communicate effectively, behave respectfully, and show empathy towards one another” (dabaja, 2022a, p. 646). b. physical skills that allude to “the forest school impact on the children’s (a) gross motor skills that can be related to certain activities, such as running, jumping, and climbing; (b) fine motor skills (dexterity) that are relatable to activities in which the children use small muscles and usually accompanied with eye coordination (e.g., building structures and using tools); (c) physical stamina or endurance, and/or (d) balance” (dabaja, 2022a, pp. 647-648). c. learning performance and cognitive skills which is related to the children’s “(a) level of concentration/focus, motivation, interest to learn, and autonomy; (b) curriculum related knowledge; and (c) creativity, imagination, and construction/designing skills” (dabaja, 2022b, p. 739). d. emotional and mental wellbeing pertaining to the children’s “behavioural conducts as well as their emotional state and overall mental health” (dabaja, 2022b, p. 741). e. risk management skills which allude to the children’s “behaviours toward assessing and dealing with risky situations” (dabaja, 2022b, p. 742). f. environmental awareness and sense of belonging that is associated to the children’s “better understanding of the natural site and nature in general as well as through their improved sense of belonging, pride, and positive attitude towards the natural surroundings” (dabaja, 2022b, p. 743), and g. self-esteem and self-confidence. this forest school impact mainly pertained to helping shy and introverted children to come out of their shells and confidently participate in various outdoor activities alongside their peers (dabaja, 2022b). 4. the forest school impact on the educators and their pedagogy in this paper, we aim to highlight what the literature has proposed in terms of the effect of engaging in forest school, and similar outdoor nature-based programs, on the mainstream classroom and early years’ teachers who were facilitating forest school sessions. in this regard, harper (2017) suggested that “[p]edagogically, [forest school] disrupts the traditional role of teacher in school” (p. 321). this was echoed in the narratives of some educators who, at forest school and similar programs, tended to perceive themselves as facilitators (murphy, 2018) of the children’s learning through encouraging them to explore and investigate (elliot, eycke, chan, & müller, 2014). in fact, facilitating learning was emphasised by a group of experienced forest school practitioners as paramount for a conducive child-led learning that underpins the forest school philosophy (harris, 2017; 2018). one of them stated, “the role of forest school prism (2022) dabaja & yılmaz-uysal (2022) prism (2022) 3 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 leaders is to encourage . . . to go with the flow, with what the child finds interesting, rather than narrowly control what the child must do [as in the directed learning of the classroom]” (harris, 2018, p. 228). disrupting the conventional classroom approach to learning requires an active role from the schoolteachers who aspire engaging their students in forest school. this agentic role was underscored by kemp (2020) who noted a “double act of resistance” of some teaching professionals while responding to the “ideological tension” between forest school and mainstream education (p. 377). according to the author, engaging with forest school and its alternative pedagogy can be viewed as the first act of resistance where teachers “can resist or subvert the mainstream standards agenda” (p. 377) while the second act of resistance consisted of the teachers’ adaptation of forest school to fit their needs. comparably, whincup et al. (2021) reported how a group of uk primary school teachers-forest school leader participants “were finding ways and means of being agentic, overcoming challenges and […] trying to persuade others of the pedagogical value of [forest school] and outdoor learning in their schools” (p. 10). finally, it is noteworthy that engaging in forest school was suggested to play a role in strengthening the relationship between the educators and their students (cumming & nash, 2015; davis & waite, 2005). 5. the transcending effect of forest school on the children’s families the effect of forest school appears to transcend the forest school site boundaries to impact, in a way or another, the children’s parents and families. for instance, one mother reported that forest school had positively influenced the older brother of a forest school child who, due to his sister’s experience, began to show more interest in the outdoors and even wanted to attend forest school sessions. as a result, the entire family started to make frequent visits to the woodland and bring along all the things usually taken to forest school, such as food and first aid kit (murray & o’brien, 2005). similar outcome was also outlined by three forest school practitioners who reported that children were visiting the forest school sites with their parents and families to, among other activities, discover the places, go on a picnic, and play games together (harris, 2017). as a result of similar outdoor visits, one parent reported “an affective ‘closeness in sharing peace and wonder in nature’ with her child” (elliot & chancellor, 2014, p. 50). in fact, parents’ involvement in the bush kinder program, through visiting the natural site and sharing knowledge and stories, appeared to strengthen their relations with not only their children, but also the forest school staff (elliott & chancellor, 2014). these instances could be indicative of how involving children in forest school programs has the potential to help bring families together and spread the love and appreciation for the outdoor natural environment among all community members. 6. concluding thoughts forest school appears to impact the involved community members in different ways. the literature proposes that forest school can promote the children’s social and cooperative skills, physical skills, learning performance and cognitive skills, emotional and mental wellbeing, risk management skills, environmental awareness, self-esteem and selfconfidence, and sense of belonging. furthermore, educators who partake in forest school tend to perceive themselves as facilitators of the learning by giving the children a wider space to explore and investigate which disrupts the traditional role of the classroom teacher as the source of knowledge. also, the literature proposes that the effect of forest school can transcend the program boundaries to reach the families of the children by, for instance, promoting family nature outings and reinforcing the bonds among their members. despite these positive outcomes, the forest school realm can benefit from further research (knight, 2018). for instance, aligning with dabaja (2022a; 2022b), we contend that more studies are needed to examine the potential impact of forest school on specific aspects of the children’s development, such as their social skills, self-esteem, self-confidence, physical skills, environmental attitude, love of nature (biophilia), nature connectedness, resilience, risk taking, and cognitive skills, to name a few. also, it would be informative to investigate the long-term effect of forest school on prism (2022) dabaja & yılmaz-uysal (2022) prism (2022) 4 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 the children through, either longitudinal or crosssectional studies. since culture plays a key role in shaping the children's outdoor learning (sandseter, 2009; yılmaz-uysal, 2020; yılmaz & olgan, 2017) and forest school is influenced by the context in which it is implemented, we suggest conducting comparative international studies that explore the practice and impact of forest school in different locations. moreover, it proves constructive to further investigate the impact of engaging in forest school on the involved classroom educators and children’s families, such as examining how forest school affects the teaching approach of the educators as well as their mental and physical states. in addition, it will be insightful to thoroughly explore the ripple effect (murray & o’brien, 2005) of the children’s forest school engagement on their parents and families, including their connection with, and attitude toward, the natural environment. to conclude, societies nowadays are facing a multitude of significant problems. for instance, human activities on the planet have been contributing to the rise in global temperature which, in turn, has led to devastating consequences, such as the frequent occurrence of extreme weather conditions (e.g., heatwaves, heavy precipitations, tropical cyclones), the melting of the polar ice sheets, and the rise of sea levels (ipcc, 2021). also, people in this era are increasingly adopting a sedentary lifestyle (kandola, 2018), including children (almeida, rato, & dabaja, 2021; louv, 2008), which is having a deleterious effect on their physical wellbeing and mental health. in contrast, forest school was suggested to promote the children’s socio-emotional, cognitive, and physical wellbeing as well as their connection to and understanding of the natural environment. knight (2016) went even farther to argue that “forest school exemplifies ways of being in and with nature that are essential for the health of the individuals, society and the planet” (p. 1). thus, and based on this brief review, it proves prudent to further explore the potentiality of this educational concept to benefit not only the children, but also the wider community toward preparing healthy and knowledgeable individuals who are inclined to tackle global environmental challenges. 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) dabaja & yılmaz-uysal (2022) prism (2022) 5 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 9. references almeida, a., rato, v., & dabaja, z. f. 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(2017). okul öncesi dönem çocuklarının doğaya yakınlık (biyofili) seviyelerinin araştırılması [an investigation of preschool children’s affinity towards nature (biophilia)]. mersin üniversitesi eğitim fakültesi dergisi, 13(3), 1106-1129. https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/forest-schools-impact-on-young-children-in-england-and-wales/evaluation-of-forest-school-phase-2-england/ https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/forest-schools-impact-on-young-children-in-england-and-wales/evaluation-of-forest-school-phase-2-england/ https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/forest-schools-impact-on-young-children-in-england-and-wales/evaluation-of-forest-school-phase-2-england/ https://creativestarlearning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/rain-or-shine-swedish-forest-schools.pdf https://creativestarlearning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/rain-or-shine-swedish-forest-schools.pdf https://creativestarlearning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/rain-or-shine-swedish-forest-schools.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2021.1942948 prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/ 10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://doi.org/ 10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 34 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 creativity interwoven into the fabric of learning, an example from a postgraduate nutritional science module chrissi nerantzi,1 haleh moravej,2 ioanna iosifidou,3 and leticia nani silva4 1 university teaching academy, manchester metropolitan university, uk (c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk) 2 nutritional sciences, manchester metropolitan university, uk (h.moravej@mmu.ac.uk) 3 nutritional sciences, manchester metropolitan university, uk (ioanna.iosifidou@stu.mmu.ac.uk) 4 nutritional sciences, manchester metropolitan university, uk (leticianani@hotmail.com) received: 03/02/2020 accepted for publication: 22/06/2020 published: 13/11/2020 abstract this paper is a patchwork of reflective accounts linked to the experience of a postgraduate module that was co-designed by a teaching team using creative approaches to learning. the teaching team provides a rationale for the design and approaches used in this module. the reflective accounts of these two students that have been included, should be seen as two cases that provide insights into these students’ experience on the module and aided to conduct a preliminary evaluation linked to these and not the whole cohort. their insights illustrate the impact creative approaches have had on their creative selves and their development as a professional within and beyond a particular module and the fabric of learning and teaching. keywords: creativity, team-teaching, nutritional sciences, reflection, students’ voice, science 1. the module and context the postgraduate module, nutrition in practice was created in 2018-19 academic year as part of the msc in human nutrition offered at manchester metropolitan university in the united kingdom to address student feedback about the lack of reality and real life practice in teaching of nutritional sciences at masters level. nutritional science is facing limitations to its capability and credibility, impeding its societal value. penders et al. (2017, 3) suggest “the pursuit of a truly capable and credible nutrition science requires reciprocity in the articulation of relevance and in communication and inclusiveness through inviting other disciplines to become co-creators of the new nutrition science”. this makes it imperative to act and re-shape the curriculum and how it is taught in nutritional sciences programmes to remain current and future facing. https://doi.org/%2010.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://doi.org/%2010.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk mailto:h.moravej@mmu.ac.uk mailto:ioanna.iosifidou@stu.mmu.ac.uk mailto:leticianani@hotmail.com http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7145-1800 prism nerantzi et al. (2020) prism 35 3(1) many students deciding to enrol on a postgraduate programme in nutritional science might not necessarily have nutrition as their first degree. therefore, providing them with real practitioners and real practice in tackling and solving nutritional issues such as social eating, poverty, mobility, meaning of food is not only essential to provide authentic insights into the field, but also provides them with future creative ideas on various routes to employability beyond more traditional paths and becoming professionals who are willing and able to learn, adapt in rapid change environments, be resourceful and creative. the module was team-taught by two academics, a nutritional scientist and an academic developer. using genuine creativity interwoven into the learning process, student collaboration and technology to deal with nutritional issues and the opportunities these present in different institutions, organisations and professional areas was the real motivation behind the design and delivery of this unit. we wanted our students to question, use their curiosity and imagination, make novel connections and come up with fresh solutions to existing problems (jackson, 1996). we felt that it was important to link textbook theory to authentic professional practice. we invited guest speakers to our sessions and used creativity, play and affect, such as lego® serious play®, making and storytelling for example. these interventions helped our students to immerse into the learning process and demonstrate that nutrition is a holistic science and in order to be effective they need to think beyond nutrition and what is provided on a plate and deal with the human element, in a cross-disciplinary context, using experimentation as well as evidence based guidelines, research and sector recommendations. for the teaching team, it was important, to help students to learn the art and science of meal planning and preparation, to understand how to manage meals and menu development for health and wellbeing in a range of contexts and situations in different settings with varied requirements. we did this through immersive, hands-on playful experiences and experimentation, which play a key role in generating novel ideas (brown, 2009; thomas & seely brown, 2011). to be brave and dare to try. to make mistakes and learn from them. but also enjoy learning and discovery. james and brookfield (2014, 65) suggest that “when playful enjoyment can aid in the grasp of difficult content, open learners to multiple, complex interpretations, and help them think more critically.” the teaching team wanted to put this to the test. we noticed that students extended their critical understanding of social, cultural and economic factors affecting individual and collective food consumption habits throughout the module and the projects they undertook based on their own interests. our teaching focused upon inspiring our students to become creative professionals in a fast changing field, to learn about holistic management of food and ingredient variety, reflection of the seasonal availability of food, cultural diversity, safe food production and awareness of emotional and social variables and also raise awareness and responsibility linked to sustainability more widely. the teaching team invited two students from the first iteration of nutrition in practice to respond to the following: • motivations for joining this programme • why manchester? • your experience on the nip unit. what did you notice on the nip module? what where the characteristics of this unit for you? what was important and why? • what did the unit enable? change for you? add some concrete evidence for this. • your future as a result of this unit. what follows are the students’ authentic narrative voices presented as patches. these patches aim to link memories, experiences and stories (barrett ferrier, 2007) related to a particular module and help the teaching team to stich the patchwork together that forms the fabric of learning and provides insights into how reality has been experienced in different ways (lather, 1997). 2. to answer my burning questions by student 1 during my second year as a neuroscience student i decided that i was very much interested in the role and prism nerantzi et al. (2020) prism 36 3(1) power of food on the brain and body. i realised that the link between nutrition and neuroscience was massively under-explored and required special attention, due to the fact that our nation was becoming more diseaseprone due to our diet choices. to answer my burning questions, i decided to combine my bsc in neuroscience with an msc in nutrition, which would then allow me to work in the field of research dedicated to both fields. as i had already completed my bsc in manchester, i decided to continue my studies there. the city oozes a certain vibrancy that is incomparable to any other i have lived in. i opted for a programme that dedicated as much time to independent research, as it did to teaching. a programme diverse enough to provide me with the foundation i needed in order to comfortably follow a range of career paths. manchester provided me with a favourable balance at university so that i could dedicate enough time to both academic and nonacademic activities. throughout the programme, specific modules equipped me with the skills needed for my future plans. one specific unit, “nutrition in practice” (nip) provided me with both a high level of knowledge on nutrition in different environments, as well as granted me the opportunity to place more kinaesthetic skills into practice. in our weekly sessions, speakers would introduce us to their world and how nutrition played the biggest part. the depth and detail of the sessions was then complemented with a skills set, which allowed us to reach into the cupboards and refrigerators to cook meals centred around specific themes provided by these guest speakers. these themes spanned from prisons to schools to senior homes. the diversity in meal preparations provided us with a certain responsibility and challenge in comprehending the necessary nutritional requirements for a specific type of audience. as the youngest on the programme, i felt honoured to be able to show my abilities and knowledge when it came to preparing meals that were both nutritionally packed and sustainable. i believe that providing an extremely well-rounded unit such as nip grants students the opportunity to really come to terms with nutrition outside the classroom. furthermore, it gives future nutritionists a sense of the difficulties in providing nutritionally balanced meals for a range of malnourished individuals. finally, it provides a certain scope in terms of future plans and practices. upon completion of the unit and the msc programme, i realised that i have an immense passion for writing and publishing. it was through the assignments at university and the challenges the world of nutrition faces, that has allowed me to discover that i want to use my academic experience to help others understand the importance of nutrition and neuroscientific research for the benefit of human health. composing pieces of literature, propagating scientific knowledge is what i have wanted to do from the beginning, and what i hope to be remembered for. 3. the freedom of creating… by student 2 starting nutrition in practice back in february 2019, i could not imagine all the knowledge and experience i would gain just a few weeks later. as many of our modules, it was divided in lectures and laboratory practical on a weekly basis. however, there was much more than that. to begin with, what first drew my attention were the real-life scenarios which comprised the main body of nutrition in practice. studying for nutrition and sustainability in schools, care homes, army, prisons and hospital settings made the actual module content very interesting to me, to which also contributed the great structure of the unit. to be more specific, the lectures were understandable, clear and up to date. as a result, the provided supporting material lied on the current evidence base for each real-world problem with no exceptions and the depth of information was just right. needless to say, one of the most engaging moments during the lectures was when each week guest speakers would come to give a presentation on their area of specialization. this totally broadened my knowledge on the food and nutrition industry not only in manchester but in rest of the uk as well. as far as the practical aspect of nutrition in practice is concerned, personally it did not feel like being in a university’s laboratory, as the freedom of creating prism nerantzi et al. (2020) prism 37 3(1) meals of our choice, taking initiatives and acting like we were in our own kitchen was quite innovative for me. furthermore, working with my team was a great opportunity of mutual help as well as negotiation on any different aspects we had on recipe making as we showed nothing less than respect in each other’s opinions. at the end of the practical, not only had we the chance to taste our fellow students’ delicious meals and desserts but also the most voted meal was rewarded with bestselling books on nutrition for our hard work, which made our experience there even better! having the freedom to be as much creative as i could during my postgraduate programme especially with projects and cooking sessions was one of the programme’s elements that helped me understand completely every task i took over. through muscle memory and experimentation in every hands-on practical, i was and still am able to memorise everything i did and learn more as we shared ideas with my fellow students, which definitely helped me expand my learning skills by giving attention to minor details. finally, nutrition in practice lecturers could not be others than author2 and author1. they were both so friendly and approachable from day 1 that it actually felt like i knew them for a really long time! author2 is an enthusiastic individual, who enjoys teaching, embraces her passion for nutrition every single moment and effortlessly transmits this passion to all of us. she loves interacting with her students in all ways, always staying professional which seems quite an achievement to me. both lecturers’ style of teaching made nutrition in practice an exceptional environment for learning, socialising and growing as individuals and professionals. personally, with nutrition and practice i have gained crucial tools for my future career as a nutritionist. i learnt to be as open, creative and fearless as i can, which was very helpful for me as an international student. the module as a whole was very well delivered which makes it a worthwhile learning experience. the only negative fact is that previous students did not have the chance to attend this playful part of their postgraduate studies. 4. what the teaching team has learnt injecting creativity, imagination and hands-on experimentation interwoven with cognitive tasks into the fabric of learning in this postgraduate module in nutritional sciences by design, seemed to have a positive impact on the two student cases on this module as their reflections suggests. they both valued the opportunity to engage in authentic learning and having the freedom to explore and discover their own interests and aspirations in the field of nutritional sciences and their way to become professionals and seek employment opportunities but also grow as individuals and learn to appreciate the power of creativity for their personal development. they talk about “becoming fearless” which was enabled through the relationships with the tutors on this module and their peers and how this is empowering for their thinking and actions. students’ creative selves seem to have had the opportunity to develop and grow during the module and there is evidence in their reflections that may indicate transformation that may have a lasting impact on them as individuals and professionals. the teaching team is pleased that the two students felt the creative approaches used and designed into this module had a positive impact on their development and growth as creative practitioners and professionals. they took a risk that paid off. now they have plans to continue evaluating the module and capture the experiences of a whole cohort of students when it is offered again. this will help them come to more conclusive findings that will inform future iterations of this module but also provide food for thought to other nutrition practitioners as well as practitioners in other disciplines to consider more creative approaches to spice up learning and teaching and transform learning into something that is exciting, stimulating and empowering for students and staff. the first indications as illustrated in this paper through the reflections that have been shared, are encouraging and the teaching team is committed to continue injecting creativity for creative learning in their team-taught module. prism nerantzi et al. (2020) prism 38 3(1) 5. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 6. acknowledgements all of the work that takes place behind the scenes in the production of papers prior to publication (such as copyediting and formatting) is incredibly time consuming, and is often conducted by people that rarely get outward recognition. i would like to thank lauren weston for her unwavering commitment, support and work behind the scenes. i don’t think that this themed issue could have been published without the copyediting and wider support work that she has provided. 7. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 8. to cite this article: nerantzi, c; moravej, h; iosifidou, i; silva, n. (2020). creativity interwoven into the fabric of learning, an example from a postgraduate nutritional science module. prism, 3(1), 34-39 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.03012011 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism nerantzi et al. (2020) prism 39 3(1) 9. references barrett ferrier, m.p. (2007). patchwork culture: quilt tactics and digitextuality, university of central florida. brown, s. (2009) play. how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. new york: penguin books. jackson, n. (1996) imagining a different world, in: jackson, n., oliver, m., shaw, m. and wisdom, j. (1996) developing creativity in higher education, pp. 1-9 james, a. & brookfield s. (2014) engaging imagination. helping students become creative and reflective thinkers. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass kessels, e. (2016) failed it! how to turn mistakes into ideas and other advice for successfully screwing up. london: phaidon press. lather, p. (1997) creating a multilayered text: women, aids, and angels. in william g. tierney and yvonna s. (eds) (1997) representation and the text: re-framing the narrative voice. lincoln. new york: state university of new york press, pp. 233259. penders, b., wolters, a., feskens, e. f., brounds, f. huber, m., maeckelberghe, e. l. m., navis, g., ockhuizen, t. plat, j., sikkema, j. stasse-wolthuis, m. van’t veer, p. verweij, m and de vries, j. (2017) capable and credible? challenging nutrition science. european journal of nutrition, vol. 56, issue 6 (2017): 2009-2012. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394017-1507-y thomas, d. & seely brown, j. (2011) a new culture of learning. cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-017-1507-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-017-1507-y 97 precarity as resistance and cultural solidarity: a critical pedagogy for exploitative flexibilisation copyright © 2017 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. i (1): pp. 97-151 abdul aziz hafiz university centre at blackburn college abdul.hafiz@blackburn.ac.uk abstract this discursive paper uses the work of freire and others to propose a critical pedagogy for precarity which is grounded in forms of radical (post)politics. a critical pedagogy for precarity is proposed that calls for a replacement of, or synthesis with, the uk government’s employability in he agenda. through the conscientisation of prospective graduates towards a ‘being-with-the-world’ and the associated mental habits and bodily practices that focus on the principles of a social and solidarity economy (sse), solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability, as a response to precarity, is possible by creating local solidarity-based associational spaces for critical education and praxis, we advocate for critical pedagogical practices alongside more opportunities for collective action that engender solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability in graduates’ bodily practices and modes of thinking and being, through a critical pedagogy that facilitates cultural action for freedom, self-help and collective forms of social provisioning of biological and social needs: housing, food, energy production, social caring and welfare needs in general. 1. introduction 1.1 the experience of precarity the widespread experience of precarity points towards the need to rework the praxis of critical pedagogy as a means of liberation resulting in the subjectivities of active social action (freire, 1973, 1990, 1993, 2000, 2014) against the social conditions imposed by the (re)precarisation of labour relations and the social realm. this requires a decoupling from the existing embedded employability strategies as a magic bullet (arora, 2013; speight, lackovic, and cooker, 2013) and to move pedagogical imaginaries towards a reframing of liberation as an active resistance to future exploitative flexibilisation facing graduates in the new economy. the term imaginaries suggests that our shared practices – political, social, economic – are enabled by way of a collective imagining concerning their purpose and significance. taylor (2004) and jessop (2012) elaborate on the power and hold of imaginaries to reduce the 98 cognitive complexity of making sense of the social world. jessop (2012, p.2) provides the following definition; an imaginary provides one entry point into a supercomplex reality and can also be associated with different standpoints, which frame and contain debates, policy discussions, and conflicts over particular ideal and material interests. hegemonic and dominant imaginaries are generally socially instituted and socially embedded and get reproduced through various mechanisms that help to maintain their cognitive and normative hold on the social agents involved in the field(s) that it maps. such 'mental maps' matter most where the sum of activities in relevant field(s) is so unstructured and complex that it cannot be an object of effective calculation, management, governance, or guidance. this makes a shared imaginary essential to agents' capacities to 'go on' in that supercomplex world, but the necessary simplifications can also have counter-productive effects. the dominant imaginary of the marketization of higher education in the uk has established an indentured condition mediated through student debt (holden and mcelroy, 2015; bachan, 2014; ibrahim, 2011). additionally, both cognitive and corporeal surveillance is prevalent in the neoliberal university leading to concerns for the traditional role of universities in nurturing cohesion and managing difference in multi-cultural societies (open society justice initiative, 2016; rights watch (uk), 2016; thomas, 2012). this paper aims to revisit freire’s concept of conscientisation, which is viewed primarily as a strategy concerned with power, literacy, the self-encounter and the acquisition of an explanatory vocabulary as a means for political awakening and cultural action for freedom, which represents agential possibilities. freire is associated with teaching strategies sensitive to the effects of relations of power based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, and so forth, and on learning and consciousness formation (morrow and torres, 2002). the widespread experience of precarity is a shared condition that can provide new forms of belonging and action (freire’s conscientisation) within the emergent fragmentation of class structure in an enduring crisis-ridden economy. 1.2 definitions of precarity whilst the generative mechanisms of precarity are too numerous to discuss here, for the purpose of this paper, certain assumptions are made in defining precarity below. precarity is defined here as the social, ecological, economic, cultural or political conditions that: i. limit the stability (corresponding to prevailing measures and or metrics or policy measures) of economic security in a given context (measured as readily convertible capital and assets, such as money or other economic instruments in sufficient quantities, excluding debt) that in normal conditions create the opportunity to weather short-term crisis and shocks (walker, hanna, cunningham and ambrose, 2015); ii. progressively deteriorates social mobility intra-generational and intergenerational (bukodi, goldthrope, waller, and kuha, 2015; erikson and goldthorpe, 2010; goldthrope and jackson, 2007). social immobility is defined here as a generational discrepancy between parental and offspring’s ontological insecurity and existential anxiety measured by the (in)ability to plan for the future (solon, 2015; campos-matos and kawachi, 2014; chin and culetta, 2014 and piketty and saez, 2014). it is assumed that security from precarity is transmitted across generations through capital assets and inheritance, and is deferred or displaced between social groups intra99 generationally (from spouse to spouse, parent to offspring, offspring to parent in any one period) through the precarisation of one particular social group in opposition to the other as a ‘fix’ for multi-generational immobility. iii. limit the ability to exchange skills (world economic forum, 2016; de pleijt and weisdorf, 2014)1 in a knowledge-based economy (oecd, 1996; brinkley, fauth, mahdon and theodoropoulou, 2009; sum and jessop, 2013)2 for wages or income above the required sum to sustain a livelihood (lee and sissons, 2016; lee, sissons and jones, 2016; goos, manning and salomans, 2010) corresponding to the ability to make long-term choices, e.g., marriage, family planning, housing (oshio, 2008; allison, 2013; cangiano, 2016, pp.4); iv. increase political desistance (laurison, 2015; armingeion and schädel, 2015; teivainen and trommer, 2017; kagarlitsky, 2017; pettifor, 2017; jessop, 2017;) defined as disengagement from formal or informal forms of government and governance and limits political resistance (ettlinger, 2007; maeir, 2013; foran, 2014; neilson, 2015; vogiatzoglou, 2015;) defined as engagement in direct and indirect forms of formal and informal social action in a given social context due to ontological insecurity and existential anxiety. 1.3 precarity as a paradigm shift the political issues surrounding precarity (lee and kofman, 2012) have identified a range of contributing factors that focus on urban life (mayer, 2012); the labour market (elcioglu, 2010); industrial relations (cunningham, baines, shields and lewchuk); welfare reform (greer, 2016); the political potential of migrant labour (banki, 2013; lewis, dwyer, hodkinson and waite, 2015); migrant worker experiences (scott, 2015, potter and hamilton, 2014); creative labour (murray and gollmitzer, 2012) and the transitions for youth (bright, 2016). it was during the late 1980s and early 1990s that, through its use by social movement activists and critical theory academics, the notions of precarity acquired the new meaning (biglia and bonet marti, 2014). precarity points toward the social and economic condition of abandonment at the core of social life by the crisis of the welfare state and by the weakening of labour rights associated broadly with neoliberal economic planning. it is the dismantling of this safety net as a reality or as a project that signals one constellation of meanings around precarity. casas-cortés (2014) identifies four distinct although interrelated conceptual developments that redefine precarity as follows: (i) labour after the rollback of welfare state provisions; (ii) the new paradigm of intermittent and immaterial labour; (iii) the unceasing mobility of labour; (iv) the feminisation of labour and life. the term precarity can be seen to have come to prominence at a specific historical juncture in many post-industrialist societies that is associated with changing economic landscapes, intensifying trajectories of neoliberalism and globalisation (dicken, 2003; gorz, 1982, 2000; ohmae, 1990; aglietta, 1979) and increased mobility (urry, 2000). 1 some have suggested that downward mobility and some deskilling during the classical years of the industrial revolution (c. 1750-1850) and some in the agricultural sector (between 1550-1750) took place. the transition from artisan workshops to factory production and that mass production substantially raised the demand for unskilled workers (including women and children). 2 see oecd (1996) knowledge-based economy for a description, for a definition, brinkley, i. (2006) knowledge economy programme report. the work foundation and for a critique sum and jessop (2013) competitiveness, the knowledge-based economy and higher education. journal of the knowledge economy, 4 (1). pp. 24-44. 100 1.4 precarity as vulnerability and instrument of governing precarity indicates an ontological condition of vulnerability, exposure, or capacity to suffer shared by all living creatures: the inability of life to survive without a protective net provided by others, by social caring, and collective protection leading to fluctuating ontological security and existential anxiety (neilson, 2015; giorgi, 2013). butler, in precarious life (2004), confronted what she calls precariousness, which should be distinguished from precarity intended in the labour market sense. for butler, precariousness is an ontological and existential category that describes the common, but unevenly distributed, fragility of human corporeal existence. the political usage of the term precarity relates to an attempt to identify or imagine precarious, contingent or flexible, workers as a new kind of political subject, replete with their own forms of collective (dis)organisation and modes of expression. in its most ambitious formulation it would encompass not only the condition of precarious workers but a more general existential state, understood at once as a source of ‘political subjection, of economic exploitation and of opportunities to be grasped’ (standing, 2011, 2014). 1.5 precarity as insecurity precarity is a concept that is located within the wider discourses of resistance to the new economy (maume and wilson, 2015; baldry, 2007). in sum, the new economy characterized by job insecurity, deindustrialization, and occupational polarization that represents a break with the past. these discourses of resistance re-present precarity as a symbolic form or expression, or symptom of the exploitative relations that are an enduring feature of social formations (sassen, 2014). precarity is an ontological subjectivity and a social condition, whereby ontological, economic, political and social insecurity leads to the experience of temporal poverty, informalisation of labour rights, casualisation of social life and the deprivation of a sense of belonging including class consciousness and/or occupational community. two broad strands of literature can be distinguished in research on precarious employment; precarious employment as insecurity regarding income sufficiency and regarding job stability (rodgers and rodgers 1989; quinlan, mayhew and bohle, 2001; barbier 2004; kalleberg 2011; olsthoorn, 2014). this literature only provides measures rather than address the ontological insecurity and future crisis potentialities of the new economy that new graduates are likely to encounter. in order to define a radical critical pedagogy for precarity, we need to reflect on the conditions wrought by the global financial crisis (gfc), the eurozone crisis and brexit. it has been argued by some that, at least in the us and uk, young people aged 16-243 have suffered disproportionately during the recession (department of business, innovation and skills, 2016). part-time working, working-time preferences and increased migration suggest that younger age groups are more supply-constrained than other age groups by reduced levels of labour demand during the recession (bell and blanchflower, 2011). this can be explained through the intense competition for jobs between the young and those at a much later stage in their careers, possibly approaching retirement. job insecurity is becoming the norm for young people in the uk (the economist, 2013; the conversation, 2014; simmons and smyth, 2016). 3 in 2015, both graduate and non-graduate employment rates returned to their pre-recession levels; however postgraduate employment rates remained below their pre-recession level. graduates saw an annual decline in their high skilled employment rate between 2014 and 2015 of 1.3 percentage points across the working age population (16-64 year olds) and 2.2 percentage points across the young population (21-30 year olds). 101 in response to the contradictory and uneven distribution of social and economic impacts of globalisation, walters and cooper (2011) argue the case for a re-insertion of politics and power into the theory and practice of lifelong learning and work. this provides a starting point for the dialogical practice of a radical critical pedagogy for precarity. they cite the work of authors such as mojab (2009) who proposes that “turning work and lifelong learning inside out” and standing conceptions of learning on their head through a re-interpretation of conceptions of knowledge and learning, or current practices of work-related education and training to critically analyse the social relations that underpin these conceptions and practices. the process of commodification that is transforming learning into a possession to be traded for gain in the market-place in parallel with “learning as dispossession”, stripping away a person’s identity and the understanding of their own exploitation (walters and daniels, 2009). estrela (1999) pointed to the ambiguities and misleading ideas about the relations of power which are established among teachers, educators and trainees, the ways and effects of the reflection. conscientisation of reflective practices which are more than a collection of techniques, a reflective practice should be based on an educational and training theory which should stimulate the teacher to take critical consciousness of the educational situations and of his/her own practice in the situation. this paper advances the issues raised by estrela in the context of the precarity faced by graduates today. freire’s concept of conscientisation linked to the dialectic unity of theory and practice through praxis should produce an instrument of theoretical and operational value for education. new interpretations will cause the teacher to wonder about him/herself, about the world around him/her, promoting a critical and dialogist relationship towards the world, solidarity with others and to explore technical and practical reason. 2. changing landscapes 2.1 the economic landscape facing uk graduates in the context of a deepening and widening retreat of state funded social protection systems, combined with an abandonment of the standard employment contract model by employers in welfare capitalist states, larger shares of risks from the crises from economic instability in a globalised economy are (re)shifting to individuals. high skilled labour are not exempt from the threat of ontological insecurity and existential anxiety on a more regular basis. human labour is being displaced by automation, robotics and artificial intelligence combined with the major challenges of reviving growth, reforming market capitalism and managing technological change (the world economic forum, 2017). whilst graduate employment vacancies have increased over the last year and the uk he sector perceive a buoyant labour market for graduates, graduates are reporting exploitative practices in employer culture (higher education careers services unit, 2017; association of graduate careers advisory services, 2016, pp.9). more generally in the uk, despite increasing the total employment over the last forty years, the uk employment stock and employment rate from 1971 to 2013 suggests that during recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and most recently in 2008, the labour market recovered to regain jobs that were lost and total employment has been at record levels in recent years (office of national statistics, 2013). this does not necessarily result in income security (abrassart, 2015; international labour organisation, 2014). the early experiences of class remain an active variable in career success for graduates, and only through personal strategies and supported reflective action can this be addressed (burke, 2015a; burke, 2015b; atkinson, 2013; christie, 2017). 102 since the gfc in 2008, euro-zone crisis and brexit (price and livsey, 2013; cantillon, 2013; centre for economic performance, 2016; miller, 2016), living standards have been directly affected as a result of the vicious cycle of debt defaults, retrenchment of welfare and a trend of de-globalisation. cumulatively, “the outlook for living standards in 21st century britain do not look promising” (corlett and clarke, 2017, pp. 12; macquarie group, 2016). between 2004 and 2013, there has been a significant percentage change in employment. technological change, globalisation and demographics have been the key drivers of change in the structure of employment and patterns of demand for skills in the 21st century so far. skills possessed will provide graduates with good employment prospects and education will play a key role in helping them understand society and the economy, and their role in it, with a greater emphasis required on social values and help for graduates to gain a broader understanding of what makes happiness and well-being (wilson, 2013, pp.107; 2012). the uk economy underwent its longest and deepest recession since at least the second world war and the recovery remains the slowest on record. output is over 15 per cent below what it would have been had the long-run trend growth (1955-2008) continued from 2008 onwards. thus, full economic recovery has a long way to go (department of business, innovation and skills, 2015). between 1997-2013 there has been a fall in employment for uk men under 25 and uk men 25-49, uk women under 25, uk women low skilled aged 25-49 and 50-64. a rise in employment for high-skilled uk men aged 50-64, high-skilled uk women aged 25-49 and 50-64 (ibid.). whilst job polarisation is explained in general as technical progress with machines replacing people in routine tasks for which software programmes can now perform the task, in britain, the demand for both low-skilled and high-skilled employment has also shrunk, alongside competition for work and employers demanding higher skills for lower salaries (goos and manning, 2003; 2007; manning, 2013). offshoring has led to a decline in middle-jobs as these jobs move to economies with lower wage costs, jobs are being replaced by low wage jobs requiring higher skills (urry, 2014, pp.1-15). for instance, skilled crafts and bank clerks have declined in volume and are being replaced, in some part, by other mid-pay jobs that require similar skills requirements. there is widespread evidence for the existence of hollowing-out or job polarisation, whereby if jobs are ranked by their initial wage at a point in time in the late 1980s or early 1990s, then increases in employment share are observed at the top and bottom of this distribution, whereas those jobs that were in the middle have lost employment share over time with intermediate jobs with lower pay offsetting some of the offshoring effect (lloyd, mason and mayhew, 2008; holmes and mayhew, 2016, 2012; mcintosh, 2013; butcher, 2013). the uk central government expenditure and receipts 1947-2014 also show that receipts more or less have kept up with expenditure with a marked divergence from this trend since 2008 (jowett and hardy, 2014, pp.8; pope and waters, 2016, pp.37). this means that despite record levels of employment, income and corporation tax collection are lagging behind, however value added tax receipts have risen sharply since 2009-2010 impacting on the cost of living (jowett and hardy, 2014. pp.7; corlett and clarke, 2017). the growth in the number of employee jobs has been somewhat weaker and this is a contributory factor. while there were 29.7 million in june 2016 – a record number – employee jobs increased by 366,000 (or 1.2 per cent) on june 2015, and 99,000 (0.3 per cent) since april 2016. in contrast, self-employed jobs have grown three times as fast, with a 3.5 per cent increase (151,000) in the year to june 103 2016, to 4.53 million, although the number of self-employed jobs remained just below the peak recorded in june 2014 of 4.55 million (business, innovation and skills, 2016, pp.16-36). since 2010 real wages have fallen by around two per cent each year, the longest sustained period of falling real wages in the uk on record. the marked decline in real pay since the onset of the recession, and its stagnation on some measures, is linked to the drop in productivity, increasing non-wage costs of employment, and a rise in inequality within wages. the uk has seen a sustained growth in self-employment, accounting for 83 per cent of the net gains in employment since 2007, however this is alongside a fall in relative earnings from selfemployment and substantial real terms reduction in income. there has also been an increase in ‘precarious’ forms of employment, including casual, very short-term arrangements or those with ‘zero hours’ contracts. (uk commission for employment and skills, 2014). the uk graduate population are hit hardest by job volatility, between 2006-2015 graduate annual employment rates are only now returning to pre-recession levels. graduates aged 2130 had lower high skilled employment rates than any of the other graduate age categories, which may suggest it takes time for graduates to become established in the labour market or to reach the higher levels in organisations that are captured by the high skilled employment rate measure. graduates saw an annual decline in their high skilled employment rate between 2014 and 2015 of 1.3 percentage points across the working age population (16-64 year olds) and 2.2 percentage points across the young population (21-30 year olds). graduates that studied ‘science, technology, engineering and mathematics’ (stem) subjects in their degree had higher employment rates, greater high skilled employment rates, lower unemployment rates and higher median salaries than graduates that studied ‘other social sciences, arts and humanities’ (ossah) subjects (kreyenfeld, gunnar and ariane, 2012; business, innovation and skills, 2016a). 2.2 the oversupply of graduates? the expansion of the uk higher education sector (1970-2013) has been greater than in most of the rest of europe, however, occupational filtering down means that graduates are entering jobs that were once carried out by their non-graduate mothers and fathers. a degree has become a requirement for an ever-larger proportion of jobs and skills mismatches are leading to 4.3 million workers possessing skills and qualifications beyond the requirements of their employment (chartered institute of personnel and development, 2015). the number of nonemploying businesses have increased by 112,000 with the growth being around +3% (business, innovation and skills, 2016b; new policy institute, 2015), which is a demonstration of contemporary production practices that will in future perpetuate precarious labour market experiences due to the mismatch between graduate skills and prospective employment. the era of downward mobility is now a reality, the role of education in social promotion valorised in discourses of meritocracy have been exposed as cloaks for the naked inequality of human conditions and prospects (bauman, 2012; giroux, 2014; giroux, 2015). 104 3. a radical critical pedagogy for precarity? 3.1 social and solidarity economy education ‘if we fail to understand precarisation, then we understand neither the politics nor the economy of the present…in the leading neoliberal western industrial nations it can no longer be outsourced to the socio-geographical spaces of the periphery where it only affects others…it has become an instrument of governing and, at the same time, a basis for capitalist accumulation that serves social regulation and control’ (lorey, 2015:1). the main argument in this paper is that critical pedagogy in an era of widespread precarity requires a redefinition, politicising graduates towards formal politics is unlikely to lead to any significant improvement in happiness and well-being. instead, it is proposed that we turn to friere’s concept of conscientisation towards the exchange of skills and knowledge in a social and solidarity economy (sse). sse aims to locally reinvent economic life on the margins of the capitalist system based on values of solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability as opposed to vulnerability to precarity through the accumulation of student debt as the foundation for housing debt in the future. sse is related to other familiar concepts such as social economy; solidarity economy; plural economy; popular economy; third sector. defourny (1990) defines social economy as made up of associative activities based on values of solidarity, autonomy and citizenship. those activities are carried out by commercial enterprises, mutuals and associations that operate based on the following principles: (i) democratic decision-making, (ii) social goals, and (iii) limited return on capital and socialization of benefits. the social economy positions itself as a third form of enterprise in a pluralist economy alongside the traditional private and public sectors sse is associated with emphasising the imperatives of social and often environmental protection, but also systemic transformation. it has six forms or features: family; domestic; autonomous; community; associative; and cooperative. it has been argued that the latter three can be seen as part of a popular and solidarity economy. in european contexts, sse is sometimes conflated with the third sector, defined as not part of the government, any profits are usually reinvested for social, environmental or cultural aims, and participation is largely voluntary. any returns from enterprise are maximized for collective or mutual benefit (amin, 2009; neamtan, 2009; utting, van dijk and matheï, 2014). applying sse to graduate employability education aims to find solutions to the ontological insecurity and existential anxiety through economic uncertainty to be faced by many graduates in the uk, as a response to employability education measured by the normalisation of compliance to exploitation in the existing neoliberal economy and paradigms of “trickle up economics” and “competition fetish” (chang, 2015; david, 2016; naidoo, 2016). security from precarity is possible by redefining economic life through transformative practices from the bottom up by providing local solidarity-based associational spaces and engaging in a science of social provisioning by redefining the intent and content of economic life, opened up through a radical critical pedagogy for precarity with sse at its core (whyte and wiegratz, 2016; dash, 2016; polanyi, 1944). 105 society cannot function without the value that is derived from unpaid work. the discourses of unpaid work and precarity allude to forms of exploitation, whereby graduates in internships or work-based learning placements offering their time for free act as free labour in the economy. a critical pedagogy for precarity shows possibilities of social value production and social value provisioning through collective action. social provisioning in the context of the current discussion is aligned to todorova’s (2013: 62) definition, as the provision ‘for the material means of life which results in economic activities that generate the flow of goods and services that is necessary to meet the biological and socially-created needs of individuals and to maintain various social values’. this paper does not argue for systemic change in welfare-destroying crises, although this is seen as an evitable course of political action in response to the current crises of capitalist accumulation, financialisation of social life and the flexibilisation of existence. we advocate for more opportunities for collective action that engenders solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability in graduates’ bodily practices and modes of thinking and being through a critical pedagogy that conscientises self-help and social provisioning of biological and social needs housing, food, energy production and social caring. events during the 2000s, especially in southern europe and the us are evidence of “precarisation as governmental precarisation” and corresponding responses of resistance, social insecurity can be found in the most different ways and in the most diverse social positions. living and working conditions of precarity are being normalised at the structural level, and as a result have become a “fundamental governmental instrument of governing” (lorey, 2015, pp.63). the contemporary period can be viewed as a period in which the normalisation of precarisation occurs through subjugation and conformity, creating widespread ontological insecurity and existential anxiety through the fear of being disposable, replaceable and flexibilised. ‘flexicurity’ (chung, 2012) in conjunction with technology and the cyber-augmented-digital-reality world act as an ever established mode of human-human interaction and human-production. this process is creating uncertainty for graduate experiences in the labour market as well as in the social realm. the site for the production of skills as a means to obtain security lie within the university. in the university, the uk quality code for higher education emphasises employability, enterprise skills and entrepreneurial skills through (i) careers services; (ii) as a focus for improving student’s experience of learning; (iii) embedding employability in the curriculum design; (iv) enterprise and entrepreneurship initiatives; (v) national initiatives, such as, the higher education achievement report; (vi) links with employers; (vii) skills development and professionalisation in the existing higher education workforce and (viii) digitial literacy. meanwhile, the business community is working to ensure that education remains the best way to raise living standards; plan for the apprenticeship-levy; access to skills from the global talent; and a flexible labour market (the confederation of british industry, 2017; quality assurance agency, 2014, pp. 1-4;). over the past decade discourses in higher education policy have leaned towards state-led attempts to tighten the relationship between higher education and the economy (leitch, 2006). higher education in the uk has experienced some key structural changes; gradual massification and more recently greater individual burden, risk and expenditure towards higher education in the form of indebtedness through student fees. state commitment to 106 financing higher education declines as it applies pressure through regulation of the ‘market responsiveness’ of the curricula offered in universities. this coincides with a shift towards a flexicurity in a post-industrial knowledge-driven economy. at the same time, the creation of new forms of higher education institutions and degree provision show the future threats to quality and integrity that are evident in the emerging infrastructure of higher degree apprenticeships with independent end point assessment organisations and co-investment models requiring large employers, smes and heis to collaborate through public sector procurement and regulation regimes (chartered institute of personnel development, 2017; skills funding agency, 2017). this will lead to a more heterogeneous mix of graduates leaving universities who face more flexible labour markets and workplaces, the overall contraction of management forms of employment, an increasing intensification in global competition for skilled labour and increased state driven attempts to maximise the outputs of the university system (harvey, 2000; house of commons, 2009; brown and lauder, 2009; tomlinson, 2012, pp. 25). the current iteration of the employability agenda can be found in the teaching excellence framework, which will assess a higher education provider’s competence through measuring the destinations of graduates entering high-skilled employment (business, innovation and skills, 2016c). 3.2 responses to precarity in freire’s process of conscientisation today, graduates face the “perils of precarity” (kalleberg, 2013) in an economy faced with a situation where growth is achieved without jobs (denicco, 2015; shimer, 2012; international labour organisation, 2014), profit is produced without prosperity (lazonick, 2014) and work is carried out without job quality (kalleberg, 2012). in order to develop: (a) a critical pedagogy for precarity and (b) praxis centred around pedagogical strategies of resisting exploitative flexibilisation, we first need to investigate the post-gfc crisis landscape. there is a risk here to restrict analysis and intervention that only deals with issues such as unemployment, conditions of work including contractual arrangements and jobs, as indicators that the longer term effects of the gfc have been neutralised. jobs are empirically and pragmatically relevant as the tangible outcomes of debt-based investment in higher education, but jobs alone do not fulfil the higher purpose of pedagogy. instead, the shared exploitative flexibilisation experienced by the educator and the student in the uk in 2016, provides the scope for dialogical co-intentional action (read and leathwood, 2014). in cultural action for freedom (2000), paulo freire explains the process of conscientisation as an instrinsic element of collective and socio-cultural action for freedom. he asks us to reject the mechanistic, behaviourist understanding of consciousness as a mere replica of reality,4 instead, proposing a critical dimension of consciousness that recognises that human beings are not dormant agents in transforming their reality from being in the world, signifying a lack of both self-knowledge and knowledge of the world, to being with the world, which can be achieved only through an objective distance from reality. the construction of our reality is a social process, so requires interaction with others. this interaction may cause a sense of difference or solidarity, as all humans are both subjects and objects of conflicting cultures. many of our mental habits and bodily practices are inherited in a ‘taken for granted’ fashion and need modifying in order to alleviate ontological insecurity and existential anxiety. we are arguing here that it is the conscientisation of social and solidarity economy practices 4 freire provides a further framework in which conscientisation can only occur by moving beyond, mechanistic objectivism, solipsistic idealism and logical behaviourism. 107 collectively that can provide an enduring security. in the analysis of the causation of human action, the level of the species (genetic populations) should be considered as distinct from the level of social structures (institutions, organizations, social groups, social classes) and from the level of personal identity. correspondingly, the evolutionary time of the species should be distinguished from the historical time of social structures, and that should be distinguished from the biographical time of individual life. (berger and luckmann, 1967; bourdieu, 1977 [1972]; luckmann, 2008; klüver, 2008; correa, asuncíon and estibaliz, 2015). in order to transform mental habits and bodily practices local solidarity-based associational spaces, firstly have to be created and utilised as the classroom for a radical critical pedagogy for precarity, in which being in the world consciousness can be transformed into being with the world consciousness. objective distance from reality can only be created when approaches to social value production utilise post-disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity practices in order to produce social provisioning of housing, food, energy and welfare in general, in exchange for time resources from graduates across disciplines towards social provisioning. ‘whereas the being that merely lives is not capable of reflecting upon itself and knowing itself living in the world, the existent subject reflects upon his [sic.] life within the very domain of existence, and questions his relationship to the world. his domain of existence is the domain of work, of history, of culture, of values – the domain in which [humans] experience the dialectic between determinism and freedom’ (freire, 2000: 40). the consciousness of and action upon reality is the entry point into the critical dimension of consciousness. this critical dimension can be developed into a characteristic of reflective instinct, then imagination, intentionality, temporality and transcendence. temporality refers to the fact that here and there cannot exist without a now, before and after. once subjective reality becomes objectified giving power to words, as a means to communicate through a common language that describes the dehumanising conditions of precarisation, including linguistic, non-dyadic communication, semiotic, and interpersonal non-verbal communication. in learning a common language that articulates relations of oppression and domination, we learn to define and to distinguish between the ‘human’ and ‘de-human’ practices and encounter the problem posing or imagining of alternatives, once we think about reality in these terms. this is the starting point of imagining an individual biography that is a unique history, with a now, before and after, as well as a biography, which is socially universal, common and shared, this being the need to sustain ourselves in the evolutionary sense and through productive work. such biographies include cultures of silence and dialectics of change in the social structure superstructure as the world as we find it plus infrastructure as the means to resist and alter the world as we find it; dominators as those who “have a voice” + dominated as those who exist in a “culture of silence”. in today’s terms, freire provides a helpful insight to question the nature of the relationship between ‘the metropolitan’ or ‘urbanised’ and the ‘dependent’ or precarious societies in critiquing the neo-liberal pedagogy of employability. the metropolitan and the urban are outcomes of the acceleration of urbanisation, the atomisation and individualisation of life represented by a globalised economy logic of a financialised world of debt-based growth that gives a dominant definition to pedagogy and stratifies and contains populations, spaces and places in a hierarchy of core, periphery and 108 semi-periphery relations. these social relations constitute peculiar pedagogical subjectivities and identities that presuppose the servility to the neoliberal logic and the centrality of this as the purpose of higher education (readings, 1997; canaan and shumar, 2008; molesworth, scullion and nixon, 2011; mcgettigan, 2013; rapper and olsen, 2016). the neo-liberalisation of higher education in the uk legitimises modes of naïve transitive/semi-intransitive consciousness that obscures the “structural perception”, which is contingent to obliterate the dominated consciousness including self-blame, and to objectify the problematical situations in the daily life of the graduates’ lived experience through a praxis against their perceived natural incapacity. the authentic dialogic conversation between the educator and the student mediates the conscientisation process as a mutual or reciprocal encounter. this is only possible through the denunciation of dehumanising and unjust structures and the reenvisioning of a new reality. in this way, higher education becomes the site in which the antagonism between cultural action for domestication – domination and oppression, cultural action for conscientisation the scientific unveiling of reality and cultural action for freedom the philosophy of the science of the unveiling of reality or the debunking of the mystifications of ideological knowledge, can be realised. conscientisation ensures that after the critical dimensions of consciousness come into being, once manifest, do not then degenerate into the old cultural myths. freire advocates for a post-disciplinary approach to conscientisation. specialisms narrow the area of ‘knowledge’ in such a way that the specialists are incapable of thinking and lose sight of the speciality as a whole. conscientisation is the basic dimension of reflective action for educator and student. whilst freire’s (1970) call to action for a pedagogy of the oppressed is contextualised against the backdrop of the mass mobilisation of ‘illiterate peasants’ movements in north-east brazil, its utility may be extended as a pragmatic strategy for resistance by the oppressed in advanced economies, as the processes of precarisation begin to affect many different professions (walsh, 2014). this paper is advocating for educational practices inside and outside the classroom that engage in a praxis of neoliberal de-socialisation. this refers to the transformation of a consciousness which has been historically and culturally conditioned through an inversion of praxis. taking account of freire’s helpful binary which separates schooling from education. following on from this, our goal is to develop a problem-posing pedagogy of critique and resistive action against precarisation, which is shared in many instances by the educator and student alike, albeit in different ways (english and mayo, 2012; mckenna, 2013; lopes and dewan, 2015; mclaren and jandric, 2014). the fighting against casualisation in education (university and college union, 2016) campaign group reveals that in some institutions, up to a third of staff are on teaching-only contracts (times higher education, 2016). according to the best workforce data available in the further education sector (fe), 34% of lecturing staff and 37% of other teaching staff in fe colleges are employed on precarious contracts. the most common form of precarious work is an hourly paid teaching contract; 30 colleges employ more than 50% of their staff on precarious contracts. data from the higher education statistics agency confirms that less than two-thirds of the uk’s academics are on permanent contracts (higher education statistical agency, 2015). a mixture of fixed-term, hourly-paid, fractional and zero-hours contracts and working at more than one institution is common place for the ‘casual academic’. in the uk, this issue of casualization of knowledge-based labour in further and higher education has also been taken up by a number of trade unions, university and college union and unison. 109 we face a situation where young people have been schooled for several generations in market values of hyper-commodified and consumer-oriented culture through the naturalisation of neoliberal governmentality, which has gradually intensified this “culture of cruelty” (giroux, 2011, 12) since the 1970s. the departure from any past generation is that their inheritance will be marked by ever-widening wealth distribution, the dismantling of social safety nets, declining job markets, in some part due to the job destruction process and/or due to technological developments in artificial intelligence and robotics and technology in general, student debts, increased precarity where unions and pensions are under assault including the increased retirement ages and the proliferation of adjunct jobs (fisher, 2011). in the penumbra of the gfc, programmes of deficit reduction and austerity have been rolled out affecting many areas of society, including higher education and graduate employment (seymour, 2014). at the same time, the acceleration of flexible employment, flexible firms, flexi-production and flexi-institutional practices alongside the retrenchment of social democratic values are evident in the workplace and welfare regimes (farnsworth, 2015). the downsizing, outsourcing, near shoring and privatisation experienced in the higher education sector in the uk points to a precarity experienced by students and academic as a shared experience (ucu, 2016). in this context, the ‘edufactory’ workplace of the new economy becomes the site in which new forms of radical critical pedagogy become necessary in the face of post-partisan, post-political forms of government and governance and the emerging opportunities for cultural solidarity to be forged as a basis for collective resistance towards precarity. the shared experiences of uncertainty, instability, ontological insecurity and the inability to plan for the future is widespread across traditional national, cultural, ethnic boundaries as processes of precarisation take hold. lorey (2015) provides an agenda for existing pedagogical practices that merely focus on more active participation in formal politics, upwardly mobile aspiration or student destinations. the modern casualisation that is taking place as part of globalisation involves a steady restructuring of social income and labour recommodification, in which many workers are finding that an increasing share of their remuneration is coming from money wages, which are a relatively insecure part of their social income (standing, 2008). this paper deviates from the pursuit of a universal basic security merely through the paradigm of work, including the universal basic income. we propose a universal basic security that is not dependent on a universal basic income in cash terms. the reason for this is that such security is nonetheless conditional on particular behaviours, instead we propose a social income that is based on a theory of radical critical pedagogy for precarity that creates co-intentional practices by the educator and student that equips the graduates with the skills, knowledge and experience to sustain their basic needs, food, shelter, warmth and social belonging utilising the human capital gained through their academic discipline but outside of the rhetoric of employability. we advocate a departure from old and new labourist strategies of collective bargaining for wages and towards a collective bargaining for the commons space and land that can provide the basis for experimenting with the production of a universal basic security. the rationale for a radical critical pedagogy is informed by the crisis tendencies of capitalist accumulation and the concomitant ecological insecurity associated with climate change. a new imaginary of knowledge transfer across networks and social exchange between communities facing uneven precariousness is proposed in order to produce a shared social security. 110 3.3 a radical politics of critical pedagogy for precarity? ‘it is typical of the post-fordist multitude to foment the collapse of political representation: not as an anarchic gesture, but as a means of calmly and realistically searching for new political forms.’ (virno, 2005) in recent years, an emergent literature across the social sciences has conceptualised contemporary processes of depoliticisation in terms of post-politics, post-democracy, and the post-political (wilson and swyngedeouw, 2014; allmendinger and haughton 2011; catney and doyle 2011; clarke and cochrane 2013; crouch 2004; diken 2009; garsten and jacobsson 2007; kythreotis 2012; pares 2011; vergopoulos 2001; žižek 1999). a radical critical pedagogy for precarity uses living and working conditions as a starting point for possibilities for political agency in neoliberal conditions. both bourdieu and castel had warned of the impossibility of collective resistance in the context of precarity. we argue that the battleground needs shifting towards a common ground of formal solidaristic practices, forming alliances between those atomised into rigid identities. in italy and spain the common ground has emerged not from the political or even university contexts, they have been realised in art institutions and social centres. the precarious cannot be unified or represented through classical forms of corporate organising due to their disparate interests. contemporary relations of production and diverse modes of production “absorb and engender” subjectivities, extending economic exploitation and multiply identities and work places (lorey, 2015:7-9). an example of this is that in the uk, there has been a decline in employee representative structures in the period 2004-2011 (uk commission for employment and skills, 2014). the alternative to a life of precarity is one of protection, political and social immunisation against everything that is recognised as endangerment. neither the security state nor the welfare state prevent precariousness, instead they engender new historical forms of precarity, new insecurities. protection from insecurity is conditional on the obligation to obedience and subordination. the conditions of precarity are both the cause and effect of domination and security. lorey (2015) goes on to discuss that domination is not legitimated through social security in post-fordist societies, instead we experience governing through insecurity. precarity denotes the relations of inequality as a hierarchy that accompanies the processes of othering. this governmental precarisation destabilises the human through employment, the conduct of life and modes of subjectivation that can only be overcome by bodily and practices of self-empowerment that recognise the ambivalence of modes of selfgovernment, conformist self-development/conformist self-determination. the patterns of a liberal ordering of precarity can no longer shift the danger elsewhere. it is now actualised in the individualised governmental precarisation of those whose cruel treatment is normalised under neoliberal conditions. the pursuit of hyper-efficient productivity will lead to an era of insecure employment (chartered management institute, 2015; white, 2015). a radical politics of critical pedagogy for precarity starts from connectedness with others in dialogues about common interests and shared vulnerabilities within the differentness of the diverse precarious through new forms of organising and a refusal of obedience. casas-cortés’ (2009, p. 328) ethnographic study of social movements in spain finds that precarity is used “both as an analytical tool and as a strategic point of departure to produce political subjectivities and re-invent different alliances and ways of struggle” (arnold and bongiovi, 2013). a diffusion of resistance, the decline of labourism and the periodic 111 emergence, diffusion and re-emergence of social movements leading to a discontinuity in social, economic and political progress, if progress is measured in the context of human flourishing. critical pedagogy becomes the intersection for education and society and the problematic of precarity symbolises a governmentalised agency in an open networked superinfrastructure. in the uk higher education context, dowling and harvie (2014) proposed that an exploration of commons and communities within higher education can possibly help to posit a transcendence of capitalist education. commons suggest alternative, noncommodified means to means to fulfil social needs to obtain social wealth and to organise social production. commons are necessarily created and sustained by communities, i.e., by social networks of mutual aid, solidarity, and practices of human exchange that are not reduced to the market form (deangelis, 2003). this begins with the gift economy of the university (social networks of mutual aid, solidarity, and practices of human exchange that are not reduced to the market form); a cooperative form of convivial competition amongst the research community of the university; and an encouragement of the constitution of community in the classroom. 4. conclusion 4.1 new directions? my starting point for a radical politics for precarity is an employability education which centralises john pearce’s (2003:25) third system of the social economy; self-help, reciprocity and social purpose and the concept of a solidarity economy (laville et al, 2007) that promote alternative economic practices in opposition to development models centred on the assumption of individualism and profit maximisation, organised around co-operation to satisfy common needs and benefits for local communities. alternative frameworks include local living economy, community economy, community economic development, people’s economy. this altern-pedagogy for precarity prioritises glocalism (swyngedouw, 2004), communal attachment and alternative consumption patterns. we recognise that this may require trade-offs. in the context of sse, uk graduates can apply their disciplinary skills and adopt and enact co-operative and solidaristic practices including connecting with precarious communities, not in a paternalistic way, but to become conscious of the knowledge they can share with other precarised communities. this process may be mediated through reciprocal knowledge transfer or transactional relations; resources, technology and ideas. in the face of the loss of belonging in urbanised environments (pinkster, 2016) and the crisis tendencies of the welfare state (offe, 1984; svallfors and taylor-goody, 1999; van kersbergena, visb and hemerijck, 2014; farnsworth, 2015, taylor-gooby, 2012, 2013), sse can provide numerous advantages: economic empowerment; reciprocity and social capital; political empowerment and participatory governance; solidarity and ethicality. the literature on the ways in which groups cope with collective responsibility for ecological problems is limited, but raises questions about how groups construct representations, engage in collective emotional processes in response to collective responsibility (caillaud, bonnot, ratiu and krauth-gruber, 2016). the conscientisation of solidarity in response to precarity emphasises the need for a dialogue about individual biographies of past, current and future insecurity in prospective graduates’ lives; food prices, housing costs, energy prices, housing volatility, job insecurity and climate change. the praxis of conscientisation of solidarity extends co-operative practices in a concrete way through a live classroom which searches for solutions to insecurity. fundamentally, the aim of critical pedagogy is twofold: 1] to correct 112 the pessimistic conclusion of neo-marxist theories, and 2] to transform a “language of critique” into a “language of possibility” (giroux, 1997, 108). we need to move beyond a hyper-commodified and consumer-oriented culture that relies on ‘money’, instead collectively develop cultures of social value production and social provisioning to create new forms of social currencies. diverse theories and approaches in critical pedagogy can be identified which call for 1) the project of experience, 2) the project of anti-system, 3) the project of inclusion (cho, 2010). a critical pedagogy for precarity proposes a project of experience that encourages lifelong learning in a live, real and actual laboratory that tests a curriculum in social value production and social provisioning in general, and specifically in food production, energy production, production of utility such as water purification and waste 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identities and belongings in the cultural heritage sector. when working with young people in british museums, creating open and safe spaces for discussing the entanglements of contemporary multicultural identities with the legacies of british colonialism is necessary and long overdue. by employing the principles and practices of critical pedagogy, heritage organisations can interrogate the dominant narratives about identity and belonging in britain, and work with young people to highlight shifting, fluid and multiple identities and belongings in contemporary britain. drawing on my experiences as the our shared cultural heritage project coordinator at manchester museum, i argue the case for cultural and heritage institutions to create safe spaces for young people from diverse ethnic and class backgrounds to explore and celebrate the meanings and complexities of their lived experiences of britishness. museums can become crucial cultural sites where young people can lead a critical interrogation of the idea of nation, through an exploration of the discourses attached to british identities that play out at local, national and global levels. critical pedagogy is an emancipatory and transformative approach to democratising education, and we urgently need more of it in museums to radically transform heritage spaces. keywords: identity, belonging, museums, young people, critical pedagogy 1. introduction: challenging exclusionary politics of nation and belonging over the last two decades, the promotion of national identity has increasingly come to dominate public and political debate about multiculturalism, diversity and belonging. those of us who work with young people have observed how these discourses of britishness have also governed policies and practices in educational settings such as schools, colleges, https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302205 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302205 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3162-752x prism habib (2021) prism 35 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) universities and youth and community spaces (habib, 2018). whilst discourses of britishness might initially have partly emerged due to the uk government’s anxieties about scotland and wales seeking independence, ethnic minorities, and particularly muslims, have subsequently become the relentless target of fundamental british values (fbv) policies (maylor, 2016). this exceptional focus on ethnic minority communities has been perpetuated by the terror attacks in the usa on 11 september 2001 and in london in july 2005, which have amplified public, media and political debates about what it means to be british and what it means to belong to britain (kiwan, 2012). the world has transformed in many strange and new ways since these aforementioned events, especially with regards to political demands for and confused attempts to define and preserve a form of national identity that promotes a rhetoric of exclusion and assimilation. official accounts of britishness in the political field have been critically reviewed as false, mythical and exclusionary (habib, 2018). according to croft (2012), the political elite construct and present their version of a story of britain’s history. often it is a narrative that serves to reproduce the british nation as being exclusive and exceptional in character and values. critics of how national identity has been historically framed note a rhetoric is created deliberately. often these narratives are “rhetorical frames through which to define how the public sees policy issues” to influence the public in determining who is a friend or who is an enemy, as well as who are outsiders or insiders (grube, 2011, p.628). the promotion of britishness—a very social phenomenon—has therefore been critiqued time and again as a means for the powerful elite to perpetuate “officially constructed patriotism” (colley, 1992, p.145). as the mainstream official discourses on britishness have been problematised by researchers, educators and students as being narrow and insular, there is a call to engage with a sense of multicultural britishness that is diverse and complex. as a researcher and educator who is openly critical of the fbv agenda, i have sought to make the case for young people’s voices, experiences and opinions to be recognised and valued in the ongoing debates around britishness. my own work has revealed the rich insights that emerge when young people are encouraged and supported to challenge hegemonic myths about british identities (habib, 2018, 2020). yet across both formal and informal educational settings, opportunities for young people to engage in these debates are currently limited. my work with young people in schools, colleges, and community and heritage organisations highlights the importance of valuing and recognising complex and nuanced multiple identities and belongings, whether they be local, national or transnational (habib, 2018, 2020). in this paper, i argue the case for cultural and heritage institutions to create safe spaces for young people from diverse ethnic and class backgrounds to explore and celebrate the meanings and complexities of their lived experiences of britishness. i argue that museums can become crucial cultural sites where young people can lead a critical interrogation of the idea of nation through an exploration of the discourses attached to british identities that play out at local, national and global levels. i advocate critical pedagogy as an emancipatory and transformative approach to democratising education, and emphasise that we urgently need more of it in museums to radically transform heritage spaces. giroux (2004, p.64) applauds the power of critical pedagogy in transforming “how people think about themselves and their relationship to others and the world”, and in inspiring young people to “engage in those struggles that further possibilities for living in a more just society”. critically engaged pedagogy empowers young people, especially those who might have previously felt unworthy of participating in school life (hooks, 2010) or alienated from a eurocentric school curriculum. 2. museums, national identity and belonging it is helpful to acknowledge from the outset when exploring britishness that defining national identity is neither simple nor straightforward. nation, nationality and nationalism are concepts that are hard to define, and also difficult to analyse (anderson, 2006), especially for young people grappling with rapid global changes and digital technologies impacting their local belongings. for bhabha (1990, prism habib (2021) prism 36 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) p.1), the nation is “a powerful historical idea” emerging from “impossibly romantic and excessively metaphorical” political and literary thought. the most popular definition for nation seems to be what anderson (2006) calls an “imagined political community”, where “even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (anderson, 2006, p.6). similarly, colley (1992, p.5) highlights how nations have long been “culturally and ethnically diverse, problematic, protean and artificial constructs that take shape very quickly and can come apart just as fast”. it is helpful therefore to acknowledge from the outset when exploring britishness that defining national identity is not simple nor straightforward. museums are known to be the stalwarts of nation states. they are seen as pandering to the whims and desires of the political architects of the nation. consider the notion of the national museum with “collections and displays that ultimately claim, articulate and represent dominant national values and myth” (aronsson & elgenius, 2015, p. 1). the sheer power of museums to contribute to debates about nation and identity is supported by “scientists, art connoisseurs, citizens and taxpayers, policy makers and visitors alike” (aronsson & elgenius, 2015, p. 2). phillip's (2011, p.3) work on the indigenisation of canadian museums reveals the challenge for museums seeking to engage diverse communities whilst simultaneously attempting to align with the values and identity of the nation: navigating this tension has significance for “issues of identity, diversity, and public representation”. trofanenko and segall (2014) explain that to begin “to understand the pedagogical mandate of public museums, one must understand the colonial practices that aided in their creation”. and so it transpires that this power of museums as bolsterers of national identities cannot be underestimated. as critical museum educators witness the ways in which “national values and notions of a ‘western civilization’” continue to be transmitted through some european museums (aronsson & elgenius, 2015, p. 2), in this paper, i ask how might we support young people from diverse communities who are keen to challenge dominant and popular myths about national identity and belonging. i highlight a need to create a movement in heritage spaces for young people to critically interrogate the contemporary machinations and meanings of museums, and importantly, i describe how these institutions can begin to take the smallest steps to work towards dismantling a colonial legacy that impacts society even today. my own experience has found that young people are very committed to and passionate about uncovering the colonial and transnational histories of buildings, monuments and architectures in their everyday spaces which can open up opportunities to explore connections between their sense of belonging to britain and legacies of empire, colonialism and the slave trade (habib, 2018). if museums have been contributory factors in cementing the imagined notion of a nation, then museums must not delay in critically examining their own role in promoting exclusionary notions of british identities. museums must strive to now actively use their spaces, collections and objects to challenge the resurgence of a defensive, exclusionary politics of national identity. this resurgent defensiveness – an almost symbolic denial of the violence of colonial heritage has been seen very recently in the marked hostile reaction of right-wing cultural commentators and politicians in a bizarre public backlash against the national trust’s report (national trust, 2020). it’s as though by suppressing the dark and violent colonial histories of quintessential british country houses, those levelling criticism against the national trust, position themselves as guardians and defenders of british values. that britishness and national identity are so closely connected to heritage and politics became all too apparent last autumn when the national trust published the aforementioned interim report (2020a) describing "the connections 93 historic places in our care have with colonialism and historic slavery" (national trust, 2020b). the interim report on the connections between colonialism and properties now in the care of the national trust, including links with historic slavery (national trust, 2020) was well received within the heritage sector and generated a great deal of productive discussion about how to move forward with honest conversations. while museum curators, heritage staff, academics, prism habib (2021) prism 37 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) students, educators and historians were particularly vocal in applauding the national trust for its responsible decision to explicitly write about direct and indirect links to british colonial histories, others reacted more defensively. the media reported on government, claiming the report was ‘unfortunate’ and caused offence, and supposed outrage at the inclusion of winston churchill’s estate (hope, 2020). in an open letter to the telegraph, the ‘common sense group’ of tory mps accused the trust of rewriting history, having “implicitly tarnished one of britain’s greatest sons, winston churchill, by linking his family home, chartwell, with slavery and colonialism” (cowles, 2020, n.p.). likewise, for sandbrook (2020) of the daily mail, in daring to scrutinise key figures in british history such as kipling, churchill and wordsworth, “the trust published one of the most intellectually fraudulent documents i’ve ever read” (n.p.). these political and media figures were quick to impose an insular and defensive type of britishness on those seeking to diversify and share honest accounts of histories in cultural heritage spaces. in fact, the tory mps who damned the national trust report highlight that part of their mission is to “ensure that institutional custodians of history and heritage, tasked with safeguarding and celebrating british values, are not coloured by cultural marxist dogma colloquially known as the ‘woke agenda’” (cowles, 2020, n.p.). it is perhaps interesting to note that much of the criticism was not so much concerned with the national trust making public the dark colonial histories of the nation’s built heritage, but rather, that such links necessarily revealed connections to the ‘great britons’ who built, lived in and owned the properties. i was interested in following how the report (national trust, 2020) also received support on social media from museum curators, heritage staff, academics, students, educators and historians who applauded the national trust for its responsible decision to explicitly write about direct and indirect links to british colonial histories. the guardian newspaper’s mitchell (2020) cited the academic patrick wright’s arguments from as far back as the 1980s when he had argued that the national trust, …had been constructed as a kind of “ethereal holding company for the spirit of the nation”. mitchell (2020) explains to his readers that, country houses are easily mythologised as britain’s soul, places in which tradition and inheritance stand firm against the anonymising tides of modernity. they are places of fantasy, which help us imagine a rooted relationship to the land that feels safe and secure. as wright pointed out, this makes the project of preserving them necessarily defensive, and one that doesn’t sit well with the practice of actual historical research – which contextualises, explains and asks uncomfortable questions (n.p.) against this backdrop, the idea of britishness and national identity is perhaps even more complex for young people today whose lived experiences of nation and sense of belonging are further complicated by the rapid pace of global change and emerging digital technologies. a key question then for the heritage sector is: how do young people define nation? as a critical museum educator, i am interested in young people’s interpretations of the critiques levelled against the political establishment for appointing themselves as vanguards of “shaping, defining and guarding ‘britishness’” (grube 2011, p. 628). does the idea that “patriotism and ideas of national identity have long been the playthings of politicians” (ward 2004: 93) resonate with young britons? given the opportunity to explore different ways to belong to britain and what britishness means to them personally, young people are capable of rich and nuanced understandings and discussions around the distinctions and tensions between classed and racialised belongings to urban (multicultural) and rural (white) britain. my own research into britishness and belonging has found that young people are often keen to interrogate the ways that the political and media elite impose racial prejudices and class stereotypes on young britons (habib, 2018). it is important to highlight the ongoing challenges in formal education for teachers and students who want to spend more time critically reflecting and exploring identities and belongings but due to curriculum constraints and prism habib (2021) prism 38 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) teaching to pass examinations – there’s not room for thoughtful individual and collective creative work about cultural heritage and multicultural identities (habib, 2018). this means the roles and responsibilities of museum educators in collaborating with young people to explore contemporary british belongings become even more paramount. for young people growing up in the wake of recent anti-racist mobilisation, identities are a hot topic. if the imagined community of a nation consists of “economic, political, linguistic, cultural, religious, geographical, historical” relationships (hroch, 2012, p.79), then heritage organisations can seek to uncover how young people interpret, represent and live these very relationships that constitute a nation. this paper argues museums are ideally suited for young people to lead on the critical interrogation of the idea of nation, and to explore diverse british identities and the various aforementioned relationships as described by hroch. as such museums – their spaces, objects and collections can become rich spaces for challenging the resurgence of a defensive, exclusionary politics of national identity. museums can radically reconfigure ways of engaging young people from multicultural communities who inhabit transnational and glocal spaces. 3. young people in museums when working with young people in british museums, creating open and safe spaces for discussing the entanglements of contemporary multicultural identities with the legacies of british colonialism is necessary and long overdue. normative practices where young people simply drop in to their local museum on a school trip, have a tour, learn a little about the objects and collections, and never return to the museum need to be problematised. such passive encounters with heritage simply reinforce the belief that the ‘formal heritage’ displayed in museums constitutes the heritage and tells the story. the treatment of collections as special with artefacts displayed behind glass so you can’t touch them is a privileging of a certain type of classed and racialised heritage. the presentation of these historic objects as fixed and static things with a significant name and alongside authorless text is another way of alienating young people who feel museum displays do not resonate with their lived experiences. such modes of knowledge in museum spaces perpetuate a myth that the formal heritage in museums is more important than the cultural heritage of young people from diverse communities that exists beyond the museums walls. these encounters in mystifying heritage and histories continue to push young people away. how can we expect young people to challenge the processes and practices of heritage making and display when such formative experiences of the museum are so passive? a bolder and more radical approach to heritage education is required to interrogate the ways that museums have long become adept at discouraging any nuanced and honest discourses about british national identity being tied up with theft and looting of colonised places. critical educators – working within heritage spaces – can seek to disrupt the status quo by opening up avenues and opportunities for young people to challenge popular elitist notions of british values. this then also raises the important question of whether museum spaces are employing critical educators who are welcome and encouraged to create transformations within their organisation. a bold and radical vision is especially needed when we consider how schooling and education in the uk has for far too long failed young people by not making multiculturalism, diversity and anti-racism central to school policies and practices. this neglect has stemmed from the lack of time and attention given to these important topics in school professional development courses and teacher training courses (lander, 2014). as a result, young people seek out alternative spaces – for example, community, cultural or online spaces – where they can reflect, have dialogue and debate about the past, present and future of multicultural britishness. dewdney, dibosa and walsh (2012, p.29) raise the issue of whether museums are doing enough to alter “curatorial practice and audience development” in the light of there being so much new important research about “the museum’s historic role in maintaining colonial and imperial worldviews, as well as their function of producing audiences based upon social distinction”. while i agree with their call for prism habib (2021) prism 39 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) new ways of knowing museums, such a radical departure requires drawing upon seminal works by edward said and franz fanon, and others who to this day inform our critical examination of the ways culture and arts are still used to push colonial discourses about national belonging and identity. these theories are not only necessary to explore contemporary contradictions and concerns between distinctions such as the “global/local, private/public, identity/difference, knowledge/feelings, etc”, they are urgent given the call “to help us articulate teaching practices together with the social, political and cultural issues that constitute, design and could transform them” (tourinho & martins, 2008, p.63). in the brutish museums, hicks argues that british museums must own up to the “sheer brutishness of their continued displays of violentlytaken loot” (hicks, 2020, p. xiii). critiquing the lexicon employed by anthropologists and museum curators who perpetuate the notion of “gift-giving”, hicks writes “and yet those institutions that anthropology has built for material culture research are filled with objects that have not been given, but taken” (hicks, 2020, p.20). it’s time for museums to acknowledge that “vocabularies of booty, desolation, wasting, ravaging, depredation, plunder, pillage, confiscations, desecration, trophy-taking, spoliation, enslavement, loot, elginisme, relics of war” (hicks, 2020, p. 20) exclude and alienate museum-goers. the colonial heritage of museums is embedded within and across many practices that are undertaken within museums, and thus, museums need to challenge these archaic ways of maintaining museums. the beginning of this necessary journey of critique and resistance necessitates a deeper mode of reflexivity and critical consciousness where young people’s voice is more central and critical pedagogical approaches are embraced consistently throughout the different parts of a museum. young people of colour in britain have grown up in a world where their own cultural heritage has been treated as irrelevant or actively excluded, having seen the ways in which elders in their communities have been ignored, neglected or marginalised by formal cultural heritage spaces. writing about cultural capital, class and habitus, newman, goulding, and whitehead (2013) refer to culturally irrelevant exhibitions as a key barrier for people of colour. thus, young people of colour in the uk have been socialised into experiencing cultural barriers and exclusions, where they have witnessed that neither their parents’ generations nor their peers have felt they can unconditionally belong in heritage spaces and projects. sometimes they might be called upon to participate in certain projects, but this might be on the terms of the institution or organisation who temporarily seeks their skills, expertise and ideas. the problematics of participation in heritage institutions’ projects has been written about at length in critical museology studies. dewdney et al. (2012) draw on david beech’s work problematizing the ways that institutions do not critically examine the power dynamics at play when they encourage communities to participate in arts and culture; instead, it is better, beech advises, to work in collaborative ways where communities are able to lead and make decisions about arts and culture. of particular interest for this paper, lynch and alberti’s (2010) critical review of well-intentioned efforts to develop authentic practices of community engagement at manchester museum is strangely familiar and reveals how certain challenges remain unresolved over a decade later. as well as striving for culturally relevant galleries, museums still need to work out ways to engage young people through critical thinking which fosters a sense of ownership and belonging. writing about adult education, lewis and clarke (2016, p. 92) argue for emancipatory and transformational practice to counter an inflexible – and i would argue racist and classist – model of ‘heritage education’ that “institutionalises a eurocentric colonial authorial model”. new democratic practices can be strived for by working with people of colour across all age groups “in all aspects of learning, design, co-production and delivery/facilitation”(lewis & clarke, 2016, p.92). this critical education practice is further developed through their discussion of heritage projects with adults that “progress multiple voices, challenge authoritarian positions and encourage active participation and empowerment” ”(lewis & clarke, 2016, p.92). and important for the arguments presented in this paper, they raise concerns about structural and institutional barriers that mean “community-led grassroots (heritage) projects have prism habib (2021) prism 40 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) to, in effect, re-educate the institutionalised educators to value and recognise so-called nontraditional skills” (lewis & clarke, 2016, p. 92). if heritage staff want to make radical changes with communities or young people leading on heritage projects, then the sector needs to actively embrace new ways to co-design, co-produce and co-curate, thereby engaging with the complex relationships between cultural heritage, identities and belongings. within the heritage sector, i work with young people who state their desire for safe spaces where they can be critical and interrogate the status quo, where their critique of colonial practices and policies is welcomed and acted upon, and where they feel they can belong. how can museums, therefore, begin to help to shift the pernicious racialised and classed discourses about young people in britain? i will now go on to describe the significance of the our shared cultural heritage (osch) project in creating change for young people and the heritage sector. young people’s ideas, experiences and stories of contemporary britishness and cultural heritage can be a catalyst for change within cultural spaces. key questions about the past, present and future of museums can be interrogated within these very same museum spaces through the lived experiences of diverse communities. young people are interested in grappling with questions regarding ethics and ownership. for example, how do museums continue to maintain a picture of the benevolent british who travelled throughout the world and were given gifts in faraway lands to take back and treasure in antiquated buildings? in the following sections i will highlight that when young people show interest in the (controversial) relationships between museums, identities and belongings, these can become significant opportunities for museum educators to embrace and develop. 4. project overview: our shared cultural heritage (osch) our shared cultural heritage (osch) is a partnership project, led by the british council and working with manchester museum, glasgow life and uk youth, that sets out to give “young people from around the uk the chance to come together to explore the shared cultural heritage of the uk and south asia and develop new methods for museums to engage with people” (lanchin, 2019). it is funded by the national lottery heritage fund’s (nlhf) kick the dust programme, a funding stream launched in 2016 specifically in order to “make heritage more relevant to the lives of young people aged 11-25” (lanchin, 2019). while the nlhf had, for a number of years, invested in work to engage young people more closely with heritage, the establishment of kick the dust represents the fact that, in spite of their efforts, “young people were still under-represented as audiences, participants and volunteers at heritage sites and services” (lanchin, 2019). there are key questions to be asked of how heritage is defined and to what extent such definitions are understood by or relevant to the young people with whom the nlhf is attempting to engage. the unesco (n.d.) definition of ‘cultural heritage’ gives examples of tangible cultural heritage as movable (e.g. paintings, sculptures, coins and manuscripts), immovable (e.g. monuments and archaeological sites), and underwater (e.g. shipwrecks, underwater ruins and cities). intangible cultural heritage examples include oral traditions, performing arts, and rituals. for natural heritage, unesco refers to natural sites with cultural aspects (e.g. cultural landscapes, physical, biological or geological formations). during the preliminary consultation to pave the way for the osch project, the british council also found that whilst the themes of identity and belonging are important to young people from south asian backgrounds, unfortunately, many young people do not see heritage organisations as sites to explore cultural heritage (imran, clark, iconic consulting, & bolton, 2018). the consultation also revealed the strong associations between museums and the formal school curriculum, and as such, that many young people felt that home and family environments were their only spaces to explore their lived experiences of heritage, identity and diversity. in order to redress these problems and the fundamental lack of connection that young people feel towards the formal /official heritage presented in museums in particular, osch has sought to make heritage spaces more relevant and useful for young people keen to explore their experiences of identity and belonging. in order to do this, osch supports young people from prism habib (2021) prism 41 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) the south asian diaspora and their peers to lead on developing, experimenting with and evaluating new ways of engaging with discourses of cultural heritage in their communities, with their peers, and within the heritage sector. this focus on young south asians in manchester is especially pertinent with the development of the first permanent south asia gallery in the uk at manchester museum. since osch commenced in may 2019, young people in greater manchester and beyond since the project moved online in march 2020 due to covid have formed a manchester museum young collective. what happens then when young people are supported to critically engage with a museum and gain confidence, skills and therefore a sense of agency? they embrace opportunities to deliver programming and contribute to organisational decisions. young people have led on and organised events, activities and campaigns that they have felt are important to their lived experiences, to their peers and to their communities, and in doing so have demonstrated their keenness and drive for exploring cultural heritage and changing cultural spaces. some of the osch project aims are for museums to become better places for young people to explore identity and connect with others; for museums to change how heritage spaces engage with and represent young south asian communities,’ and, for museums to open up new opportunities for young people. one of the very first events young people played a key collaborative role in was in august 2019 when, in partnership with the whitworth art gallery and the manchester museum, osch young people commemorated the history of the 1947 partition of india. the key themes explored at the commemoration day were why do we need south asian heritage month and why/how does the history of the partition of india need to be taught in uk schools? we held a call out for young creatives to plan and deliver workshops for young people and wider communities. at the family event, there were guided tours by curators, presentations by historians and authors, creative workshops, object handling, films and performances. there was a bazaar for young creatives to sell arts and crafts, refreshments and books, as well as a ‘partition wall’ for attendees to note thoughts and comments on the themes of the day. young people were paid to lead on the workshops; they designed and delivered engaging workshops for their communities and peers. there was great attendance of young people with their families. a local news reporter covered the day’s events also recorded a recitation of the sujata bhatt poem ‘partition’ by a young person and uploaded it to social media. young people run the osch twitter, instagram and blog – and the diversity and complexity of what it means to be british, and the impact of classed and racialised identities, as well as attachments to local, national and transnational identities very much come through on what the young people post, produce and write. moreover, young people have been teaching the heritage sector about these very same lived realities by delivering social justice and anti-racism training to museum staff. young people have engaged in shortlisting exercises for new posts, sat on recruitment panels, and interviewed the designers for the new upcoming south asia gallery. recently in autumn 2020, some of the young people cosubmitted a brilliant proposal to the fair museums careers summit to share their learning about how museums can engage with young people to create transformative new policies and practices with the wider sector. their joint proposal was accepted and they delivered an outstanding session online attended by heritage staff throughout the uk who learned about how these young people had embraced opportunities to collaborate and create in museum spaces. 5. critical pedagogy in museums: coproduction, co-design and co-curation my arts-based research with ethnically diverse young people from south-east london showed that even in the classroom context it is hard to shift the mindsets of students (and sometimes teachers) to employ radical and critical ways of exploring britishness, identities and belongings (habib, 2018). however when students and their teachers embrace an approach which disrupts conventional and traditional classroom hierarchies, and engage in deep and meaningful critical encounters with peers, prism habib (2021) prism 42 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) families and teachers, there is a remarkable honesty and openness in the reflective and collaborative conversations about identities and belonging. throughout this paper i am focusing on what occurs when we adopt a framework of critical pedagogy in museum spaces to explore identities and belongings with young people. i am interested in the activities, events and campaigns that they create, change, or lead on in ways that they deem relevant to themselves, their peers and communities. critical pedagogy advocates for a non-hierarchical and nonelitist approach to learning and teaching. thus, we can adopt critical pedagogy principles and practices to radically shift traditional arts and culture hierarchies and privileging of curators (often white, male and middle-class) as being the most knowledgeable. coproduction, co-design and co-curation are currently the preferred new methods in establishing the uk’s first permanent gallery dedicated to south asian histories and cultures at manchester museum. over the last three or more years, a whole range of interested parties with different levels of experience, skills and knowledge – including members of the community, designers, young people, and manchester museum and british museum staff, and many others – have come to learn from one another and teach one another. this mode of learning has resulted in a conscious effort to rethink and redirect outdated policies and practices, in order to strive to co-produce non-hierarchical and non-elitist ways of showcasing british asian histories, identities and belongings. when supported with the right opportunities in collaborative and caring spaces, young people are eager to explore social justice through arts and culture (habib, 2020). the young people i’ve worked with on the osch project, as well as previously in my capacity as a school and college teacher, will share that they aren’t granted these moments of identity exploration as much as they would like in schools. they recognise this is due to the time and curriculum demands on teachers to teach them to pass examinations. museums, therefore, need to be spaces of reflection and critical collaboration where young people delve into understanding and sharing historic and contemporary modes of belonging, identity and citizenship. museums are important places to critically engage in dialogue and discussion, and to interrogate dominant myths about migration, multiculturalism, nation, identity and belonging. museums have a responsibility to develop strategies with young people to further exploration of the self and the other through arts and culture. these practices of interrogating identities can transform young people’s ways of thinking about multiple identities and belongings. arts-based reflection and discussion enables young people to recognise complexities, to challenge oppressions and to seek social change (habib, 2018). according to chilton and leavy (2014, p.403), the arts can consistently “promote autonomy, raise awareness, activate the senses, express the complex feeling-based aspects of social life, illuminate the complexity and sometimes paradox of lived experience, jar us into seeing and thinking differently, and transform consciousness through evoking empathy and resonance”. when engaging with arts and culture through frameworks of critical pedagogy, we find that these aforementioned benefits are even more heightened and deeply felt by both young people and museum educators. critical pedagogy principles and practices are powerful when working with different social groups. clover and sanford (2016, p.73), researching the challenges specifically faced by women museum educators in a heritage sector that denies the lived and gendered experiences of museum educators, highlight that some of the educators they heard from were keen to emphasise the need for critical pedagogy in “gaining the confidence needed to tackle difficult issues and contribute to meaningful social change”: “one participant in particular spoke about how the complexity of today’s social issues and populations necessitated deep and critical pedagogical preparation”. and thus, it isn’t only the traditional ‘official’ museum educators who might understand the significance of critical pedagogy, but the young people – our teachers in the museum sector – also appreciate the value of critical pedagogy in museums. some of the main issues raised by the museum educators working with adults equally apply to those engaging with young people in heritage context. young people are conscious of museums acting as prism habib (2021) prism 43 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) “manifestations of cultural and political desires, rather than straight-forward representations of historical or national ‘facts’” (aronsson & elgenius, 2015, p. 2). thus, young people are keen to use a critical pedagogy framework to uncover the representations of history that museums produce and maintain over time. there are a number of changes that museums can make to implement pedagogies that are relevant and useful to young people and their communities. clover, sanford, johnson, and bell (2016), for instance, highlight recurring themes in art and culture organisations: firstly, the need to move beyond focusing solely upon schooling and curriculum in museum education; secondly, create new and better ways to negotiate tensions between curation and pedagogy; thirdly, build upon critical and radical pedagogies; and finally, establish museums as pedagogical spaces for us to challenge the dire consequences of capitalism and neoliberalism on our society and on the environment. all of these aforementioned issues are relevant to the lives and experiences of young people, and are key for museum educators interested in promoting young peoples’ identities and belongings within the museum context. all of these identified challenges and tensions can begin to be understood at deeper and critical levels if we use a critical pedagogy framework when working with young people (and of course with adults too) in museum education. 6. conclusion: young people radically transforming arts and culture in this paper, i have drawn upon my relatively new role within manchester museum as the project coordinator of a cultural heritage initiative our shared cultural heritage (osch) to engage young people from the south asian diaspora and their peers in leading on changing the ways that museums have worked with traditionally underrepresented groups. some of the key learning from the osch experiences are that we need a longer time period to plan for an annual event on partition1947 and for better scope to have a grander events with more young people gaining organising and leading on the day. it might be better to hold a weekday event for school students and teachers to lead on workshops/talks and coproduce events and activities for the community commemoration. the partition1947 event, for example, was advertised through social media/community groups, but need more lead time to publicise the event for more young participants to produce, collaborate, and participate in activities relevant to the south asian british diaspora. since this event, we have created spaces for young people to continue to lead on and deliver (and as far as possible paid opportunities) so many other meaningful community events, ranging from the launch of a report on the impact of discourses of the war on terror on young people, both muslim and nonmuslim to a multilingual poetry and language learning session to accompany the beauty and the beasts exhibition at manchester museum. there is still so much work to be done when it comes to young people feeling secure and confident in belonging (or not) to britain, and in young people being bold and proud to celebrate complex multiple identities. heritage spaces need to move towards models that are ethical and responsible when doing community engagement with young people of colour. at the very least, this means diversifying museum spaces and museum workforces by providing meaningful and useful paid opportunities, paid internships, and paid work experience for young people who wish to get to know the sector, learn about the careers and opportunities available, and change the future of the heritage sector. museums can be welcome and necessary spaces to showcase young people’s lived realities. moreover, museums must adopt radical and transformative practices to platform young people’s counter stories about british histories, identities and cultures. if it is commonly accepted that museums were introduced as elitist endeavours to reproduce and preserve discourses about cultural heritage in heavily classed and racialized ways, then how do we own those shameful moments of our colonial past and neoliberal present? when working reflectively and collaboratively about our shared colonial histories using critical pedagogy principles, tensions about the authenticity of ‘democratic’ practices might emerge as museum staff naturally have the power to shift the course of the project and activities. more work needs prism habib (2021) prism 44 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) to go into breaking down power imbalances, and subsequently, encouraging authentic, radical and productive modes of collaborative activities in museums. how do we provide safe spaces for young people to be able to counter dominant myths about britishness and belonging with their own creative and cultural campaigns, exhibitions and pedagogies? when exploring cultural heritage, we can explore what resonates for young people, showcase their contemporary perspectives on cultural heritage, and learn more about how technological developments have impacted young people’s ideas about cultural heritage. naturally, new ways of doing collaborative arts-based activities with young people will bring forth contemporary nuances to ethical decisionmaking about co-production and co-dissemination, particularly in an age of social media (lomax, 2015). there is increasing discussion in museum education about adapting heritage spaces to go beyond what is traditionally deemed as cultural heritage. questions continue to arise—and will keep on emerging—about who defines “british values”, and whether religiously, ethnically and culturally diverse britons are permitted and welcome to contribute to the conversation on british belongings and identities (bragg, 2006; habib, 2018; miah, 2015). what truths, hopes and stories do young people want to share about the past, present and future of british histories, identities and cultures? what are the classed and racialized experiences of contemporary belongings to britain? how are museums important cultural sites for young people to explore, develop, and rethink some of these aforementioned questions about national identity? moreover, by adopting critical pedagogy principles and practices, museums can offer educational and curatorial support and resources to young people eager to teach us about britishness past and present. when exploring britishness with young people my experiences have pointed towards the importance of young people’s counter-stories (habib, 2018) which correlates with the idea that perhaps then the nation is “important only in the moment where its cultural imperatives are being carnivalized, subverted and challenged” (back, 1996, p.250). therefore, in reflecting on the osch project, i am keen to keep on working to accommodate these challenges and counter-stories in cultural and heritage spaces. do we do enough genuine challenging and enough subverting, or do we adhere to the status quo and to what has always been? a very important question that drives my work with young people is when it comes to exploring identities and belongings do we dedicate enough time and space with young people for them to reflect on and create conversations where they begin to grapple with the complexities of belonging to nation? the latest exciting space to reflect and converse about these issues, and then to co-curate, co-design and co-produce a gallery for manchester is the upcoming south asia gallery. young people are integral to this reflective and collaborative process: they are currently working on this co-curation, co-production and co-design, and their individual and collective stories about diasporic belongings to britain will be showcased in the south asia gallery when it opens in 2022. prism habib (2021) prism 45 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. acknowledgements thank you to the young people who inspire us to do better in the heritage sector, and to the brilliant colleagues who support radical change-making. thank you also to dr garth stahl and dr hannah-lee chalk for their very valuable feedback and advice to aid the writing of this paper. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism habib (2021) prism 46 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 10. references anderson, b. 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(2019, 27/8/2019). what is kick the dust? retrieved from https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/common-sense-or-nonsense https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/common-sense-or-nonsense https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/19/national-trust-must-stop-lecturing-britons-slavery-colonialism/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/19/national-trust-must-stop-lecturing-britons-slavery-colonialism/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/19/national-trust-must-stop-lecturing-britons-slavery-colonialism/ prism habib (2021) prism 47 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/blogs/whatkick-dust lander, v. (2014). initial teacher education: the practice of whiteness. . in r. race & v. lander (eds.), advancing race and ethnicity in education. palgrave macmillan. lewis, r. m., & clarke, r. (2016). re-educating the educators: re-envisioning digital civics & participative learning practice in black women’s community-led heritage projects. in d. e. clover, k. sanford, k. johnson, & l. bell (eds.), adult education, museums and art galleries: animating social, cultural and institutional change. sense publishers. lomax, h. (2015). seen and heard? ethics and agency in participatory visual research with children, young people and families. families, relationships and societies, 4(3), 493-502. doi:10.1332/204674315x14326324216211 lynch, b. t., & alberti, s. j. m. m. (2010). legacies of prejudice: racism, co-production and radical trust in the museum. museum management and curatorship, 25(1), 13-35. doi:doi: 10.1080/09647770903529061 maylor, u. (2016). ‘i’d worry about how to teach it’: british values in english classrooms. journal of education for teaching, 42(3), 314-328. doi:10.1080/02607476.2016.1184462 mitchell, p. (2020, thu 12 nov 2020 15.00 gmt). the national trust is under attack because it cares about history, not fantasy. the guardian. retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2 020/nov/12/national-trust-history-slavery national trust. (2020). interim report on the connections between colonialism and properties now in the care of the national trust, including links with historic slavery. retrieved from https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colioni alism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf newman, a., goulding, a., & whitehead, c. (2013). how cultural capital, habitus and class influence the responses of older adults to the field of contemporary visual art. poetics, 41(5), 456-480. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2013.07.001 phillips, r. b. (2011). museum pieces: toward the indigenization of canadian museums. queen's university press. sandbrook, d. (2020, 23/9/2020). how dare the national trust link wordsworth to slavery because his brother sailed a ship to china? . the daily mail. retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article8762205/dominic-sandbrook-dare-nationaltrust-link-wordsworth-slavery.html tourinho, i., & martins, r. (2008). between circumstances and controversies: proposals for a visual arts critical pedagogy. in r. mason & t. eca (eds.), international dialogues about visual culture, education and art (pp. 63-68). intellect. trofanenko, b., & segall, a. (2014). introduction. in b. trofanenko & a. segall (eds.), beyond pedagogy: reconsidering the public purpose of museums (pp. 1-7). sense publishers. unesco. (n.d.). what is meant by "cultural heritage"? retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/the mes/illicit-trafficking-of-culturalproperty/unesco-database-of-nationalcultural-heritage-laws/frequently-askedquestions/definition-of-the-culturalheritage/ https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/blogs/what-kick-dust https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/blogs/what-kick-dust https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/12/national-trust-history-slavery https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/12/national-trust-history-slavery https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2013.07.001 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8762205/dominic-sandbrook-dare-national-trust-link-wordsworth-slavery.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8762205/dominic-sandbrook-dare-national-trust-link-wordsworth-slavery.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8762205/dominic-sandbrook-dare-national-trust-link-wordsworth-slavery.html http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 81 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 creative psychologists: reflections on teaching and pedagogic practice inspired by an arts-based away day aspasia paltoglou,1 and jeremy hopper2 1 department of psychology, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, uk (a.paltoglou@mmu.ac.uk) 2 department of psychology, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, uk (j.hopper@mmu.ac.uk) received: 02/02/2020 accepted for publication: 23/06/2020 published: 27/09/2020 abstract in an unusual departmental away day, instead of delving into discussions about established disciplinary modes of teaching and research, colleagues from the department of psychology at mmu were invited to attend a very different type of event, and to engage with explorative activities more associated with the creative arts. the idea behind the departmental event was to facilitate us to bond as a group but also to encourage us to pursue and develop continuing professional development (cpd) by engaging with elements of teaching and pedagogic practice from a very different disciplinary perspective. in this reflective commentary, the authors share their experience and reflections from taking part in and engaging with this meeting. the authors reflect on issues such as the effect of traditional academic criticism on students’ self-esteem and creativity, as well as alternative assessment and teaching methods that aim to enhance student agency and engagement. in summary, this think piece is a reflection on the authors’ creative selves, and the role of expressive freedom and creativity in relation to teaching psychology in higher education. keywords: creativity; authentic assessment; appreciative inquiry; teaching; psychology; art 1. context for academics from the department of psychology at manchester metropolitan university, a uk higher education (old polytechnic) institution, an away day is an annual meeting that aims to inspire and motivate staff. historically, away days include discussions and presentations, along with stated aims and outcomes for attendees, with a view to developing teaching and learning practice under the remit of continuous professional development (cpd). however, the away day that is to be the focus for this think piece was very different. instead of perpetuating dominant discourses involving metrics and the mechanics of established practice, we were invited to engage with a range of creative arts based practices, guided by an artist. having an artist to encourage us to get involved in activities such as painting and writing poetry was important and inspirational, as most of the attendees do not normally engage – either formally or informally – in such activities. it was made clear at the outset that the purpose of this alternative away day was to encourage the academic team to not only bond as a group, but also to https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:a.paltoglou@mmu.ac.uk mailto:j.hopper@mmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1888-5137 prism paltoglou & hopper (2020) prism 82 3(1) engage with the arts-based activities, in order to facilitate potential ideas for fresh and alternative pedagogic, teaching and assessment practices. the meeting took place at friends’ meeting house, located in the centre of manchester; in addition to being a meeting place, it is also place of worship for the quakers, a faith group largely opposed to conflict, and who engage in the experience and practice of shared contemplation. 2. the away day & the events the first activity of the day involved a long roll of paper being placed on to the floor; this was made available for us to paint on. a little later, we were encouraged to dance, write haikus and draw. whilst drawing, it was noticeable that a number of colleagues were engaging in relaxed conversation, (a phenomenon that generally did not occur as part of the previous away day contexts). this meant that as a group, we started to learn new information from and about colleagues, including that quite a number of them were already talented artists. of course, a spectrum of thoughts and responses were expressed by participating colleagues, which ranged from being very positive to very negative. some felt somewhat inspired by the nature of the event, and got involved in the majority of activities; (although some felt that an explicit and critical reflection on the aims of the away day would have been useful and added value). on the other hand, some colleagues felt that this was not the best use of their time, and took the decision to leave early. the authors belonged to the initial group of attendees, and whilst feeling challenged, engaged with most of the activities, (although neither of us had the courage to dance on the table, as a couple of our more liberated colleagues did). we felt that the aim of bonding the group was, in the main, achieved; this also includes the small number of colleagues who decided to bond by escaping early and going to the pub – as a result of their discomfort with the session. 3. embracing risk as we immersed ourselves in drawing, haiku writing and dancing, it occurred to us that we were being given the freedom to take risks in a safe space, and to discover avenues of potential practice that we had not previously explored. naturally, as part of – and as a consequence of – this, we began to consider the types of learning environments that we create for our own students, and whether our more traditional and disciplinary-staid approaches foster creativity. biesta, (2013) talks about the importance of being able to embrace risk in education; creativity and risk-taking unfortunately tend to be oppositional to dominant educative climates. however, they are compatible, indeed essential for the belief that positive and constructive change can be possible; especially where developing critical and creative skills and abilities in students, teachers and researchers is concerned. teaching that invests time and effort to identify social injustices can facilitate an agenda to explore, address and implement change. teaching and learning in higher education should not be restricted to existing practices or competency-based assessments, but should also address the political (in the sense of politicised and politicising) aspects of education, to critique and seek positive and constructive change in wider society. this reconstructive approach to educational practice broadens the scope of learning from a narrow curriculum to one which engages the learner in cultural and ecological politics. 4. silence in the classroom meeting in a hall where silence is a key feature of quaker worship was serendipitous, as a number of colleagues embrace silence as a pedagogical tool. silence can be used to stimulate, to engage and to challenge. for example, when a seminar tutor who subscribes to this approach asks a question on a topic, they might simply wait – for a protracted period of time – for a response. in the main, answers and responses are generally forthcoming. it is worth the wait in silence, though the wait can be discomforting for tutor and students alike. speaking in front of a group can cause considerable anxiety and the classroom should be a safe space in which students are encouraged to develop this very important skill. on the other hand, silence of the students should not always be viewed as something that is negative (ollin, 2008; wang & moskal, 2019); for example, students prism paltoglou & hopper (2020) prism 83 3(1) may be silent because they need time to process what they are learning. they might need time to think about the material, and/or to write their thoughts down. vocalisation does not necessarily always lead to effective learning, and silence should not always be interpreted as non-participation or passive learning (ollin, 2008; wang & moskal, 2019). it is therefore important to consider the value that silence can have in the classroom and be inquisitive about what it might mean in different occasions. 5. critique and creativity one aspect of the away day that made an impression on us was the fact that our artistic work was not subject to critique by either colleagues or the instructor. evaluation and critical reflection are important, as without it, it can be difficult to achieve higher academic standards. critical thinking is one of the most valuable skills that one can learn at university (foundation for young australians, 2015); by evaluating students’ work, we teach them valuable skills, such as being able to write in an accurate, concise and clear way. however, it is also true that academic judgement and critique can, at times, have an adverse effect on students, especially where expressive freedom, creativity and confidence is concerned. intensively policed practices and routines associated with academic discipline has the potential to decrease the intrinsic motivation to study. rule-based rigidity can make it difficult for students to find their voice, and freely explore what they are genuinely interested in. it is common to find that a student’s first response to critical feedback on an assessment is to compare themselves and their academic performance with others in relation to marks awarded. this, in turn can lead towards issues with confidence and low selfesteem. given that undergraduate students are making their first hesitant and fragile steps in to the academic world, it is important that we provide appropriate levels of support, whilst also recognising that it is important to prepare students for the demands and rigours of a competitive workplace. it can be a difficult balance to strike. research suggests that the relationship between criticism and creativity is complex. being highly selfcritical has been shown to reduce creativity (zabelina & robinson, 2010) and lower self-esteem (värlander, 2008). furthermore, performance-related stress has been associated with decreased creativity (byron et al., 2010). nevertheless, there is evidence that certain types of critique and evaluation are beneficial for divergent thinking (wang et al., 2017), depending on the agreement between the individual’s motivation and the type of evaluation. more specifically, wang et al. (2017) showed that when there is helpful and positive critique and evaluation, individuals exhibited a positive personal growth attitude. these individuals became more focused on satisfying personal aspirations and manifested higher levels of divergent thinking, in comparison to those that adopt avoidance strategies aimed at resolving perceived mistakes and satisfying other people’s aspirations. further studies are needed to explore this effect on creativity more comprehensively (runco & ancar, 2012). one approach that has been developed and used to empower students is appreciative inquiry; this aims to involve students in the development of the teaching curriculum and academic communities (kadi-hanifi et al., 2014). the approach focuses on building upon existing strengths and successes of the student, rather than correcting problems and critically highlighting deficits. lecturers and students become more equally involved in dialogue about the nature and direction of teaching and learning – focusing more on what is effective for the student. there is some evidence that appreciative inquiry can have a positive effect on the student experience, including acceptance of diversity, support in achieving higher expectations, and helpful peer support (kadi-hanifi et al, 2014). another relevant approach is authentic assessment, i.e. ‘the extent to which the assessment of an educational course matches the key aims and intended outcomes’ (murphy, 2006, p 44). this approach emphasizes the importance of establishing an ecologically valid context for assessment, as opposed to an abstract context that many traditional types of assessment tend to adopt. the aim is to create a form of assessment that is similar to a situation that students could perhaps encounter in the real world (herrington & herrington, 1998). another approach of interest is prism paltoglou & hopper (2020) prism 84 3(1) ‘ipsative assessment’, whereby students’ coursework is compared to their own previous work, and not to the coursework of other students (hughes, 2014). the focus of this approach is on the progress of the individual student and the achievement of their own personal best, instead of trying to conform to an external standard that is the same for all. as with any situation in life, studying can be a source of positive and negative emotions, and we cannot always shield students from disappointment. värlander, (2008) suggests that emotions should be considered as part of the learning experience, rather than something that impedes learning. a positive climate could be achieved by encouraging students to show empathy towards peers and address the range of emotions that may be experienced upon receiving written and / or verbal feedback, (including – but not exclusive to – anxiety, confidence and joy). it would be interesting to explore the effect of such activities on the students’ creativity. 6. increasing student agency the academic journey should be about increased student agency: undergraduate students start their degree usually with very little freedom, and they are increasingly given more freedom to explore topics that they are interested in as their degree progresses. the question is, are we as academics and educators effective in helping students become gradually more independent in their learning? there has been an increasing emphasis on the importance of students being actively involved in their own learning and assessment, rather than being passive subjects of a top-down policy (adie et al., 2018). with some subtle help and scaffolding from lecturers, students can become active agents in their learning and become much more effective as independent and confident learners. co-creating course curricula with the students is one way of increasing student agency. bovill, (2014) provides tentative qualitative evidence on the effect of co-creating curricula with the students in three universities. the results indicated that students appear to show greater group cohesion, higher levels of confidence, motivation, performance and understanding of the material. 7. alternative vs traditional assessment the need for alternative and creative practices in education has been widely documented (e.g. brian & clegg, 2006; james & nerantzi, 2019). the question remains, should contemporary ideas around assessment practices such as authentic assessment replace more traditional methods? quansah (2018) suggests that both have their virtues. more specifically, traditional assessments tend to be high in validity, objectivity, and reliability. they are typically easy to measure and can be very effective when used as a learning tool. for example in the preparation and participation of an examination, students often delve into the literature and critically evaluate the studies, material and source, thus broadening the scope of information that they are exposed to. furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that alternative forms of assessment do not always guarantee higher engagement with learning, ellis et al. (2019) notes that authentic assessment does not always prevent or discourage plagiarism. this is surprising, given that authentic assessment is thought to increase student engagement and interest in their coursework. alternative ways of teaching and assessment should be considered as additional tools in our teaching toolbox, rather than as a panacea (quansah, 2018). having more options and teaching techniques can only be beneficial for addressing an increasingly diverse student population. 8. closing remark the creative-arts-based away day encouraged the authors reflect on their pedagogic and teaching practices. we will continue to explore how we can make our teaching more relevant, effective and creative for our students. prism paltoglou & hopper (2020) prism 85 3(1) 9. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 10. acknowledgements the autors are grateful to dr chrissi nerantzi and dr neil withnell for their comments on earlier versions of the paper. 11. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 12. to cite this article: paltoglou, a. & hopper, j. (2020). creative psychologists: reflections on teaching and pedagogic practice inspired by an arts-based away day. prism, 3(1), 81-86 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301208 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism paltoglou & hopper (2020) prism 86 3(1) 13. references adie, l.e., willis, j., van der kleij, f.m. 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https://cetl.ppu.edu/sites/default/files/publications/innovative%20assessment%20in%20higher%20education.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640802063528 https://www.iiste.org/journals/index.php/rhss/article/view/40787 https://www.iiste.org/journals/index.php/rhss/article/view/40787 https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2012.652929 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510801923195 https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v11iwinter.1087 https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2010.503538 prism journal prism (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 1 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 ‘care-less whispers’ in the academy during covid-19: a feminist collaborative autoethnography paula stone1 adele phillips2 and, kerry jordan-daus3 1 school of humanities & educational studies, canterbury christ church university, uk (paula.stone@canterbury.ac.uk) 2 school of allied health professions, canterbury christ church university, uk (adele.phillips@canterbury.ac.uk) 3 school of humanities & educational studies, canterbury christ church university, uk (kerry.jordandaus@canterbury.ac.uk) received: 30/04/2021 accepted for publication: 04/08/2022 published: 01/10/2022 abstract this collaborative autoethnography (bochner and ellis, 2016) has created a space for three women academics from working-class heritage, navigating the liminal and temporal space of the covid-19 pandemic within a post-1992 higher education institution, to explore the social relations of one higher education institution and confront their lived experiences. the stories shared in this paper are analysed through a ‘care-less’ (rogers, 2017) lens, which asks the academy to recognise and confront the duplicity and self-glorification of policy and practice, that might be viewed as acts of normalising and supporting care-less cultures and behaviours. the paper raises questions about social justice, diversity and inclusion, the intersectionality of class and gender, and the inequity of the lived experiences from those who sit on the margins. the paper is the first collaborative writing project from a newly formed staff network of academics who come from working-class backgrounds, and we are intentional in our commitment to support each other as new researchers, giving agency in support of the other to find their voice. keywords: care-less spaces; working-class heritage; feminism; covid-19; autoethnography 1. introduction this paper examines the lived experiences of three women from working-class backgrounds who are employed as academics in a post-1992 university. it is recognised that our research is about our ‘selves’, and thus the writing of our critical reflections as part of the research methodology is unapologetically personal. within this work, we position ourselves as both working-class, and feminists which also acknowledges the ‘centrality of gender as an organising principle in all social systems’ (sprague, 2016, p. vii) which is ever present, but not to the exclusion of considerations about social class. therefore, it is no coincidence that we take a reflexive feminist approach (reay, 2000a, 2004) to discuss our positions and experiences within the space of ‘the academy’, during the covid-19 pandemic. we acknowledge that the term ‘working-class academic’ is a slippery and contested term so before we explore our experiences, we want to offer our https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213 https://doi.org/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:paula.stone@canterbury.ac.uk mailto:adele.phillips@canterbury.ac.uk mailto:kerry.jordan-daus@canterbury.ac.uk mailto:kerry.jordan-daus@canterbury.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2638-5637 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5831-8201 prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 2 early view position on what this term means for us. we acknowledge we may no longer have the right to claim to be working-class as we are now all firmly situated within the middle-class by the nature of our profession; yet the legacy of a working-class heritage is evident, and important to us and pervades our stories. our collective definition of working-class is the class group at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the precariat (savage, 2015), which share low household income, are likely to rent property, have few social ties with associates in higher-status occupations, and has limited cultural capital. this, we argue, has shaped the way we act and perceive the academy. we also struggle with the idea of ‘the academic’, as for us this conjures up a certain image of someone who spends their time engaged in ‘being an academic’; they are professional thinkers and communicators who enjoy reading scholarly books and journals, writing, talking with other academics, challenging grand theory for pleasure as well as part of their profession. our academic identity is not that well-formed – we use the term academic as a signifier of our occupation. within and across institutions, the experiences of academics within higher education institutions are often homogenised as a middle-class norm. therefore, it is important to us to speak out and to speak up on behalf of those of us raised in workingclass households who have a different experience. thus, the motivation behind this paper was to explore our experiences, as women from working-class heritage working in academia during the first covid19 lockdown, through feminist collaborative autoethnography. the stimulus for this paper came from rogers’ (2017) paper entitled ‘“i'm complicit and i'm ambivalent and that's crazy”: care-less spaces for women in the academy’. we had all experienced the sometimes care-less nature of our own institution, and the wider context of higher education as whole, at some point during this period. drawing on rogers (2016) care ethics model, developed in response to the continued dehumanisation of intellectually disabled people, we explore this concept of care ethics and care-less spaces (2016; 2017) based on our own classed and gendered experiences in higher education; but we are certain that the experiences may resonate with colleagues in other institutions. the care ethics model (rogers 2016; 2017) offers three spheres of caring and care-full work which are currently populated with care-less spaces; ‘the emotional caring sphere, where love and care are psycho-socially questioned; the practical caring sphere where day to day care is carried out relationally; and, the socio-political caring sphere, where social intolerance and aversion to difficult differences are played out’ (rogers, 2016, p.116). these three spheres all interact in complex ways and are grounded in social and political relations that seek caring legal and cultural processes. these three spheres interact with each other and are ‘grounded in social and political relations that promote human flourishing and social relations’ (lithari and rogers, 2017, p.3). in contrast rogers (2017) argues that a care-less space is a space in which care-less-ness predominates over an ethics of care. furthermore, she argues that care-less spaces can damage, thwart, and contest caring work which permeates the emotional, practical and socio-political spheres of everyday activity (rogers, 2017). in this paper, we argue that higher education institutions can sometimes be a ‘care-less’ space. to study stories about classed and gendered experiences is to situate them in relation to the structures of the spaces in which they arise (butlerkisber, 2018, p. 73). we work in a post-1992 university in what has typically has been called a teaching university as opposed to a researchintensive institution, although our research culture is developing. we are a university that needs to recruit rather than select (rolfe, 2003) and a fall in intake, coupled with high attrition rates, can have a significant impact on the numbers of courses, departments and staff. a post-1992 university like our own presents a different cultural environment to that of a more prestigious or traditional university. in common with many post-1992 institutions, our university contains a statistically higher proportion of first-generation university attendees from workingclass or minority ethnic backgrounds and mature students, those aged over 23 years; and 32 percent of the students study part-time. furthermore, many more of our colleagues come from non-traditional academic backgrounds compared to a more prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 3 early view traditional university setting. one would think that this environment is a more care-full space (rogers, 2016; 2017) than more traditional or elite institutions. however, class is still a complex marker of the ‘other’ in academia (lynch and o’neill, 1994; coulson et al., 2018). we suggest that our identities as academics who are women from working-class origins and the identity of the higher education sector in which the research is situated are both fragile, as far as they are both sensitive and vulnerable to real and perceived external constraints. like rogers (2017), we explore mistrust, complicity, and discomfort within the academy. we seek to contribute to this discussion by reflecting on our experiences in the context of the covid–19 pandemic. we posit that the pandemic undermined the ability of universities to provide spaces for academic staff that honour a care ethics model (rogers, 2016; 2017). at present, it seems to us that because of the coronavirus, advances made towards equality and equity are under great threat for all women, but especially those women from the working-class, who have been disproportionally affected because of the pandemic (united nations, 2020, warren and lyonette, 2020). as the sector’s leaders tried to manage the multiplicity of demands to ensure institutional survival, academics grappled with their new virtual worlds of teaching, virtual meetings and building relationships with students and colleagues on-line. it is in this new reality that the need for care takes on whole new meanings. for each of us, this has meant accentuating the relational, ethical and methodological dimensions of our work. the relational dimension of our work is illuminated by the stories we share; stories of self which are honest and reveal our vulnerability. seeking to model, in our own storying, the complexity of interplay of factors, we use narrative to reveal deeper understandings, in an unmasking process (bruner, 2002). we provide evidence of how the spheres of caring leak into and out of private and public life for women academics who were raised in working-class households, raising questions about whether the academic space is safe, care-full and just. we explore the ‘isolations of capitalism’ (bergman and montgomery, 2017, p. x) exacerbated by a pandemic that is evidently impacting more on those marginalised in the academy and the wider society (crooks, 2020). 2. methodology feminist collaborative autoethnography autoethnography is a means to illuminate social phenomena, experiences, and identities that would be difficult to capture otherwise (mcdonald, 2016). this work will contribute to the growing body of work which uses the autoethnographic voice to expose the invisibility of power structures within the academy (nichols and stahl, 2019; moriarty, 2020). a feminist autoethnography, drawing on the work of allen and piercy (2005) is “a method of being, knowing and doing that combines two concerns: telling the stories of those who are marginalized and making good use of our experience” (2005, p. 156). eschewing traditional research conventions and embracing our emotions and subjective experiences, we invite the reader to share our lived human experiences (bochner and ellis, 2016) as we tried to adjust to what was happening in our institution as it reacted to the covid-19 pandemic. so, researching within a feminist research praxis, in our bid to connect the personal to the cultural (ellis and bochner, 2000) we came together and collaboratively wondered about our experiences (bolander and smith, 2020), as we adjusted to these exceptional circumstances. our storying together grew from a developing relationship forged at meetings of the newly established staff network for academics who come from a working-class background, which had been meeting for the previous 18 months. the network, or call to form a collective in solidarity, was established by author 3. this group now provides a space for care-full relationships based on honest and trusting relationships. offering a means to go beyond individual storytelling and reflection, through collective reflection and critique of personal stories of this period, we turned to collaborative autoethnography (nordbäck, hakonen and tienari, 2022). in this way our feminist collaborative autoethnography created a transitional and intermediate space in which we were able to explore our precarity with academia. prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 4 early view research approach prompted by a discussion that has become the first autoethnography below, we wrote our individual autoethnographies so that we could record our different experiences and perspectives of academia, as they were happening to us as individuals. the stories were written in june and july 2020, four months into the first period of lockdown in england that began at the end of march 2020. during this time there had been a seismic shift in the way that academics were teaching, researching, and interacting. later, we came together to talk about writing, in a process of collective analysis. as we talked, we recognised commonalities or absences of the three mutually interactive spheres of caring and care-full work; emotional caring, practical caring, and sociopolitical caring (rogers, 2017) within our experiences. this formed the basis of the discussion below. it is important to acknowledge however, that these stories are only partial representations of what happened during this time. we took a collaborative approach to determining what these autoethnographies illustrated. the themes were generated through a joint discussion of mutual challenge. ethical issues auto/biographical work appears to convey lots of academic freedom, but it also carries with it, significant responsibilities. there is no denying, that ‘research that frames its purpose in the context of critical theoretical concerns still produces undeniably dangerous knowledge, the kind of information and insights that upsets institutions’ (kincheloe and mclaren, 1994, p.138). whilst we are speaking out against some of the care-less practices in higher education institutions (hei), we are mindful, that this research is being conducted at a time of high emotional and financial stakes. we have already written about the fragile identity of our own institution, as we experience it, so we need to be particularly vigilant, indeed care-full (rogers, 2017) about how the data concerning our own organisation is presented so that it does not damage the reputation of the institution, or the sector. we have tried to write sensitively about the moral, ethical, and financial challenges senior leaders within the organisation are facing, as we have no desire to criticise any one person or groups of individuals. we truly recognise the constraints that they, we, are under, and in the spirit of this work we have taken extra care to record events as accurately as we could by sticking as closely as we can to the facts as we remember or indeed interpreted them. we maintain that other characters are sufficiently well disguised, so that readers outside the context of our exploration will not be able to recognise them. we can do no more than reinforce our conviction that we have done all we can to act in a respectful and careful way. writing autoethnographically has also meant our voices cannot be disguised so we have had to consider carefully how much of our stories we wanted to tell. we reserve the right to be self-governing in a bid to safeguard our own well-being. the case for care-lessness this next section presents the chronology of the conversations that prompted our thinking about the carelessness of the institution. prompted by the first story about author one’s endeavours to source an office chair as we made the transition to teaching from home, we, three women from working-class heritage, recorded our own thoughts and responses to this initial event. for this reason, we have included the vignettes to invite the reader to respond to our experiences or reflect on their own experiences. 3. author 1’s story: ‘the chairgate complex’ here, i reflect on my lived experience, as an academic who has working-class origins, during the covid-19 pandemic. the focus is the apparent assumption within our organisation and probably within the sector that its workforce possesses sufficient resources to transform their homes into a makeshift office overnight. at the beginning of lockdown in march 2020, i initially panicked at the thought of homeworking, as although i possessed a laptop, it was ancient and slow. i had no workstation in my home, little space to put one, and no phone with free minutes that i could use for work. furthermore, i didn’t even own a desk and office chair. i do not run a car, which further restricted my ability to gain access to office furniture prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 5 early view at this time. therefore, for the first three months of lockdown, my best option was to work lying in bed propped up by cushions. i was unable to use the camera for lectures and tutorials, as i was too embarrassed to let my students see me working lying down in bed. i also looked and sounded dreadful, as i contracted a virus in early april that i suspected to be covid-19 but was unable to get tested. i felt exhausted for months afterwards. in this space i worked long days with few breaks to cope with the tsunami of work generated by a need for enhanced pastoral care from understandably anxious students, the instant switch from face-to-face to online teaching delivery, updated policy documents, new health and safety requirements, and seemingly endless programme administration. eight months on i have finally managed to borrow a chair from a friend (not an office chair, but a chair nevertheless!), although i am still working at a semidismantled dressing table, and i suffer from constant backache. doing my job without a work phone has also been particularly difficult to manage when there are so many students in really difficult situations. although i am privileged enough to have my own household space, the noise from neighbours is highly distracting. as we approach winter, heating bills are a constant worry. spending 20 hours per day, six days per week in the same room would be mentally challenging enough, but i don’t have time to think too much about that in addition to everything else. while this situation has been less than ideal, the thing that has caused me the most discomfort is being made to feel that somehow ‘i’ was unusual and at fault in lacking these resources. online meetings and video presentations have allowed us all to gaze through private windows into each other’s personal lives via the screen. some of the views through the window have been replete with home-offices and adequate computing equipment; a far cry from the online tutorials conducted from my bed. risk assessment forms that require staff to assess the suitability of their ‘workstation’ and ‘their equipment’ appear to assume an existing level of resources that does not necessarily reflect reality. i have found the ‘business as usual’ approach has placed a high pressure on academics who are struggling daily to complete their work in these conditions. 4. author 2’s story: ‘oh, you don’t have a room of your own’ the following reflection was written in response to my colleague writing about not having a chair, the assumptions made about our private spaces and the danger of the lens through which we see and make inferences about our lived experiences. i recognise the many privileges that i have now, a room of my own, with a desk, a chair, my own computer and a dodgy printer. but i really do not take these for granted. i do know what it is like not to have a room of your own. growing up, sharing the bedroom with my elder and younger sister, each of us struggling for a space. i remember not having space. i remember, not having a home. at 16 years old, we were temporarily homeless after our house was taken away from us because it was tied to the job my dad had. the job went, the house went. we were homeless. a family of 7 with 2 dogs, without a room of our own. that coincided with the time i was taking my o levels. all i wanted was a room of my own. not just a room of my own, a home to share with my family. after several months of sofa surfing at our grandparents’ homes, we were rehoused. seven of us and one dog moved into a very small 2 ½ bedroom house. one of the bedrooms, which my two brothers shared, was not big enough for one bed, but my dad built small bunk beds for the two of them. this period of covid-19 has brought my own family back home; my twenty-four-year-old son, returning to live with us after living independently for six years; my daughter, who has a disability all her carefully planned activities stopped all her hard-fought independence snatched away. we are locked in! unlike my homelessness in the past, my daughter has a room of her own, my son has a room has a room of his own, i have a room of my own, and well, my partner, also working from home, has the dining room! we all have a computer, a desk, a chair and the privilege of room of our own. but it has been hard, and at times we have fought and argued and desperately needed more space. i look at my colleagues, i look at my students, and i know that my privileged position now is special. i am prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 6 early view fortunate. but i never assume that everyone has this space, or any space, a room of their own. i was once told by one of my colleagues to take the chip off my shoulder. stop talking about being working-class, your background, your struggle. move on. but that chip is my shoulder. that chip is who i am; my struggle to get a room of my own means that i never take it for granted or assume that everyone has this luxury. if you have experienced poverty once in your life there is always a fear that you would/could return so the lived reality of my colleague, my friends and my students, who are sharing their space with young children and a dog, or their bedroom with their two siblings, or in a house share with seven other tenants, or a bedsit with just one room for eating, living and sleeping and no outdoor space; is so much visceral than if you had never experienced such things. that is why i am talking about the experience of people who originate from working-class backgrounds in the academy. 5. author 3’s story: ‘trimming the fat’ the lockdown, and working from home in the subsequent months, has made me raise questions about many aspects of my professional, and indeed my personal life. presenting my vulnerable ‘self’ i share the most significant features in institutional working patterns this year that i feel have been detrimental to my career. in my experience of working in higher education, as a woman from a working-class background, i have always felt that there have been practices in place that hinder or silence the individual and collective voices of those of us who are not white, male and middle-class. i am not suggesting that this is a deliberate or even conscious practice, but my voice seems to always be overshadowed by the dominant group in the academy. in contrast with the silence and obedience to authority, which seems to be the appropriate demeanour in the academy, i know i practise a more direct communication style, which is often more expressive of my feelings than most of my colleagues; i appreciate this makes me appear confrontational, truculent or belligerent, but this really is not my intention at all. now with so many virtual meetings, the gap between whose voice gets heard and whose voice doesn’t seem to have grown even wider. with meetings now being driven by a ‘crisis’ imperative there are even fewer opportunities to raise questions or get one’s voice heard, especially if that is a critical voice. as in many other institutions i suspect, we are constantly hearing messages to ‘trim the fat’ from planning, preparation and assessment tasks in order to prioritise the emotional and cognitive needs of our students. whilst simultaneously we are ‘expected’ to take full responsibility for our own emotional and psychological well-being. when i have spoken out about these paradoxical demands, i have been made to feel as though i am being selfish or obstructive – with references being made like “we have all got to roll up our sleeves” or “we are all working above and beyond, you are not the only one”. people like me, who raise questions, have often become labelled as dissenters, troublemakers or worse ‘blockers’ of change or innovation; thus, creating an effective tool with which to silence those of us whose ideas go against the dominant view. i have decided not to attend meetings or engage with those who do not/will not hear me as i have found that meetings are no longer places share opinions or raise questions. significantly, as an early career researcher, i have had my research hours cut to zero because of the imperative to attract and retain students, and the resultant significant increase in administration and teaching. only those colleagues with academic outputs that contribute to the research excellence framework retained their research hours. as an early career researcher this has had a devasting impact on my career development and my identity as i struggle to find my place in the academy. 6. analysis and discussion through our storying, we have used the lens of “care-less spaces”, and the three spheres of caring; emotional caring, practical caring and socio-political caring, (rogers, 2017) to examine our lived experiences of being a woman in academia who comes from a working-class background. through the process of writing and talking we were able to explore the private and public self, yet we recognise that our stories are contingent, temporal, fluid and continuous (clandinin, 2013) thus providing a ‘site of exploration and struggle’ (richardson, 1997, p.87). we prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 7 early view intentionally privilege our voices, our stories; to turn up the volume on gender and class in the academy. however, whilst we were able to recognise the often care-less responses of the academy towards academics, especially women who have less capital, during the covid-19 pandemic we were not able to separate the spheres or understand their impact individually, because they are all so interconnected and so closely intertwined. care-less behaviours in the academy our stories reveal how the bureaucratic and systematic response to the pandemic led to an intensification of the labour that became central to academic work; teaching rapidly moved on-line. as academics it was assumed that we would easily adapt to this new way of working, which was in direct contrast to care-full relational action (rogers, 2017), whilst at the same time managing our own psychosocial responses to what was happening in our own lives. it is well documented that the global pandemic placed a disproportionate strain on women in the workplace in general; with the increase in unpaid care work, with children out-of-school, and increased care needs of older persons (united nations, 2020, warren and lyonette, 2020). furthermore, a recent report found that women in academia were more likely than their male counterparts to be facing extra childcare and domestic duties, which negatively impacted their output of published works and involvement in their realms of expertise (amano-patiño et al., 2020; gabster et al., 2020). this is borne out by the withdrawal of research hours for author 3, and the recognition of privilege despite extra caring responsibilities by author two. the theme that unites our three narratives, is the idea of ‘class work’ which (gray and kish-gephardt, 2013), drawing on pierre bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus, explains how class differences impact people’s evaluations of each other. gray and kishgephart's (2013) theoretical framework explains how social class advantage and disadvantage are enacted within organisations and are sustained through the interactions of different class members and groups. our stories reveal how individual acts of class work have led to institutionalised structures that have failed to recognise that some academics do not have adequate resources to work at home during the pandemic. these cumulative, self-reinforcing institutional practices legitimate organisational norms (gray and kish-gephart, 2013) failing to recognise the additional challenges of women and academics from working-class backgrounds, based on an assumption that all academics share the same habitus and have the same amount of social and economic capital to support working from home. the assumption that all academic staff could absorb a greater workload into their ‘home’ life without the resources to support that was not recognised and had a significant impact on those lecturers – typically women who lack the financial resources, childcare or space to accommodate a ‘home-office’ as author 1 has so articulately explained ......’the thing that has caused me the most discomfort is the feeling that somehow ‘i’ am unusual in lacking these resources’ (author 1). author one’s concern that she did not have an office desk and chair let alone an office left her feeling vulnerable and was detrimental to her professional and academic identity ‘i was too embarrassed to let my students see me working lying down in bed’ (author 1). this is a key feature of careless practices which individualise the lived experience of inequality, in which ‘those that have’ disavow the collective experience of those ‘who have not’; something we have all described in our autoethnographies. in our narratives, we have identified that the norms that constitute a care-less space have become exaggerated in the response to covid-19, and this has contributed to our feelings of illegitimacy and unworthiness at a time when we all needed to feel that we belonged and were cared for. phrases such as ‘business as usual’ and ‘you must remain positive’, are illustrative of care-less activity within all caring spheres, serving only to shut down conversations about the real-world challenges that are being faced by academics during the covid-19 pandemic. unsurprisingly then, our initial interpretations of some of the acts of care-less-ness were interpreted as personal failings, rather than seeing these actions as systemic gender and class inequity (grummell et al. 2009). the subversion of emotional and socio-political caring (rogers, 2017) experienced by us all, such as prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 8 early view points being ignored in meetings and being told to ‘stop talking about the chip on your shoulder’ (author 2) were clearly indicative of rogers’ (2017) conception of a care-less space. the acts of microaggression of being told to have a more positive attitude, being missed out of email communications, or seeing our contributions not being acknowledged, combine to further engender a sense of not being valued or being seen as insignificant (honneth, 2007). in all our stories, it is evident that at times our emotions, were denied especially if they posed a potential to challenge the status quo which bourdieu (1984) would argue is a form of symbolic violence. the crisis in higher education brought on by covid-19 has allowed a particularly care-less form of competitive individualism to flourish. some colleagues, notably those driven by aggressive competitiveness have intensified and elasticised the working day expecting their academic colleagues to do the same i.e., to undertake much of their work in their own time (lynch, 2010). the increased demands for performativity have, as we have shown, had high emotional costs on those of us who might already feel vulnerable in the academy. to us, higher education institutions seemed to be rewarding compliance and conformity; kindness and generosity seems to have all but disappeared; replaced instead with mistrust, complicity and discomfort within academic roles and relationships (rogers, 2017). author three’s assertion ‘i have found that meetings are no longer safe places to share opinions or raise questions’ illustrates the use of symbolic violence (bourdieu, 1994) which largely goes unrecognized and unacknowledged, in the care-less space. the feelings of not belonging to the institutional habitus (reay, 2000b) as a woman from a working-class heritage as described in our narratives has always been there, but covid-19 isolation of homeworking has meant that acts of silencing, marginalisation and feelings of exclusion have become more apparent and more painful to the individual. and of course, there was the assumption that the care of one’s own wellbeing is an individual responsibility rather than one shared with the institution. the stories which normalised an expectation of having a chair, a desk, a room of your own, gave a sense a glossing over of the impact of multi-tasking which many women academics and students were taking on: working or studying full-time, home school and caring for shielding parents. although our stories are individual stories, they could also be what richardson (1997) calls a ‘collective story……… a story which tells the experience of a sociologically constructed category of people in the context of larger socio-cultural and historical forces’ (1997, p.14). we argue that care-less-ness within the academy is premised on the classical objectivist view of scholarly work, namely that it is separate from emotional thought and feeling; this seems to have been accepted, expected and endorsed through the commercialisation of higher education markets in recent times (lynch, 2010) and has been exacerbated by the pandemic. we recognised the burden of bureaucratic work hindered our ability to be creative and led to self-censorship based on an understanding of what can and can’t be said. surveillance, including self-surveillance, had become institutionalised in everyday life since lockdown began, and working from home became ‘the fabrication of image over substance’ (lynch, 2010, p.55). we conclude that working under a high level of scrutiny during the pandemic has led to a culture of compliance for many of our colleagues and has in turn left all three of us feeling a sense of personal inauthenticity. we have all felt, as lynch (2010) points out, a ‘deep alienation in the experience of living to perform’ (p.55) especially when we feel that much of the activity is adding value to our teaching and research. this all points to a dereliction of all three caring spheres. however, we also learnt that the real, and most valuable lessons of the pandemic did not evolve out of our day-to-day academic work, but out of the relationship with each other as women with a common heritage founded on precarity. the relationship between the authors of this paper was one based on trust, and honesty, and it is hoped that the spirit of the writing is evident to the reader. our motivation to tell our stories was to shine a light on some acts of care-less-ness within the socio-political context of a university in the most unique of circumstances. prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 9 early view 7. concluding remarks within the existing tensions of covid-19, our gendered and classed lens, exacerbated by the pervasive cultural performativity higher education context (ball, 2017), emboldened a sense-making of our stories. whilst we appreciated that the challenges of homeworking during the pandemic were to some extent inevitable for all, an exploration of the extra difficulties that women from working-class backgrounds were facing felt important to us. it is widely acknowledged that universities have been hierarchical and patriarchal institutions (morley, 1999), and in 2020 decisions that impacted on us all in the academy, and indeed in wider society, were largely being made by white, middle-class, managers. driven by fear and ‘academic capitalism’, whereby higher education institutions increasingly exist as a cog within a global economic environment dominated by principles of neoliberalism (slaughter and leslie, 2001), competition, profit at all costs, loss of autonomy, and conformity (roumbanis, 2018) resulted in a rise of market-like, or care-less, behaviours in universities. increased intensification and bureaucratisation of lecturers’ work during the pandemic, in a bid to respond quickly to the market and our competitors, produced a careless and meanspirited way of doing academia (back, 2016) as illustrated in our narratives. with covid-19 continuing to have a huge economic impact on universities there have been adverse effects and affects (hey, 2011) on all staff as the pressure for boundaryless work increased (morley, 2010). in our case, we observed a ‘business as usual’ (author 1) mantra even in the face of a global pandemic. yet, a veneer of collegiality within the institution masked a culture of performativity and competitive individualism and this seemed to become a necessity in response to the covid-19 crisis where all three spheres of caring (rogers, 2017) are only valued if they are professionalised (lynch, 2010). the policy micro politics as enacted within universities has an impact on the lived experience of the culturally marginal, like us, who are perceived as the ‘other’ (hoyle, 1982). we have no doubt that beneath the carapace there is a mass of conflicts, tensions, resentment, competing interests and power imbalances that influence everyday interactions within the organisation that affect us all, but particularly those of us on the margins. there is no denying that, as our stories have illustrated, we, women who come from working-class origins, are often subjected to a kind of cultural imperialism that renders us silent through small but significant acts of symbolic violence (bourdieu, 1994), in the form of a lack of recognition or disrespect, even within the most intimate of intellectual spaces. the academy has been described as a place where ‘systemically gendered cultural, social and structural arrangements’ (blackmore and sachs, 2007, p. 13) are normalised in such a way women [and the people who are considered working-class] are perceived as the problem; sadly, this is what we found during this most challenging of times. thus, the pandemic has illuminated what has always been; the assumptions about academic work prefaced on middle-class and masculine practice, or the ‘male model of working’ (collinson and hearn, 1996). it seems to us that careless spaces within the academy have become more pervasive and pernicious and have developed as a faster rate as academics have been restricted emotionally and practically (skelton, 2005). this paper has provided an opportunity to have our voices heard in a caring space. critical hope the motivation for this small piece of autoethnographic research was to ground our work in women’s ways of knowing (belenky et al., 1986). using evocative autoethnography (bochner and ellis, 2016) we have been able to recognise that the act of homogenising academics’ experience represents a care-less space. adopting a feminist stance, we have explored the ways in which dominant knowledge practices disadvantage us as women by excluding us from enquiry; denigrating their ‘feminine’ cognitive styles and modes of knowledge; and producing theories of social phenomena that render women's activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible (anderson, 2020). our research was political, in that it aimed to disrupt normalised, sexist structures through integrating diversity into the ordinary work of an institution; what ahmed (2012) calls ‘diversity work’. as feminist scholars we put women first; we were caring. our storying has prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 10 early view enabled us to share our own experiences in a care-full space in which we have questioned the concept of care psycho-socially and cared about each other at a practical level (rogers, 2017). as a group of women who come from working class backgrounds, we have created one caring space in our institution where working-class academics can meet and talk about the care-less-ness of the institution honestly and openly without fear of being judged. the network called ‘we need to talk about class’, adapted from the book title ‘we need to talk about kevin’, (shriver, 2003), acknowledges that the magnitude of class invisibility in higher education establishments is being disavowed. the group meets monthly; we talk about what is happening to us and try to find ways in which we can better support ourselves and each other, which obversely is inevitably building a critique of our own institution. in juxtaposition to the wider organisation, this group has provided a space when care-full relationships can be built. we have a long-term goal of addressing class inequality within the academy through making the lived experience of academics, particularly women, from working-class heritage more visible and widely acknowledged. we argue as, did butterwick and dawson (2005), if ‘we do not speak publicly about, and critically, the problematic conditions of life and work within our own academic walls then our credibility as critics and analysis of what is going on in the world outside them is bound to be similarly diminished’ (p. 64). the ‘we need to talk about class’ group has enabled us to develop and nurture our own and collective voice. in this spirit, we have endeavoured to realistically appraise our institutional practices through a lens of ‘critical hope’ (bishundat et al., 2018), with a view to developing a better future within our institution and the wider sector. we hope that the recent imperative for collective activity amongst academics from working-class backgrounds through the introduction of crossinstitutional spaces, such as the association of working-class academics and the international working-class academics conference will enable mechanisms for ‘othered’ voices to rise to the fore. we encourage a ‘call to arms’ amongst other academics from the working-class, to enter these spheres of resistance and challenge the normalisation of unjust institutional practices that reproduce and conceal white, male, elitism. you are not alone: misshapes, mistakes, misfits raised on a diet of broken biscuits, oh we don't look the same as you and we don't do the things you do but we live around here, too, oh really (pulp, ‘misshapes’ – a different class, 1995) care ‘is not a strange activity which is undertaken by a few brave souls, but it is ingrained into the existence of every person’ (herring, 2013, p. 45). we have operated in a care-full way in authoring this paper. we have considered care-fully how we have presented our organisation; in a way that embodies respect, responsibility, human safety, and trust as championed by rogers (2017). prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 11 early view 8. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) stone, phillips & jordan-daus (2022) prism 12 early view 10. references ahmed, s. 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transformative andragogy; co-created curriculum; adult learning; agency 1. introduction traditionally, literacy provision in england and wales education is available through a limited set of routes that do not reflect well the literacy crises in the uk, that sees a reported 5 million functionally illiterate adults. as observed elsewhere (scott, 2018; hughes, 2018), english is a poor vehicle for literacy: ’[t]he identity of english has been and is founded on premises and practices that are not viable … even though it may continue doggedly to make special claims for itself … english … works against the majority of its students’ (peim 1994, 8). for younger students and particularly those ‘not in education, employment or training’ (neet), foundation learning has been designed as an intervention for skills deficit focused largely on literacy and as an agenda of social inclusion (smith and wright, 2015); the type of literacy provision ‘designed to domesticate rather than liberate’ (lavender & tuckett 2020: 31). the uk literacy crisis threatens to get worse, even while successive ministries scramble to emphasise traditional literacy and numeracy in school. at the expense of a rich, diverse curriculum (including music and arts), school pupils are in many cases directed to start the two-year level 2 english gcse courses a year earlier, thus investing heavily and arguably https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402214 https://doi.org/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:howard.scott@wlv.ac.uk mailto:peteb@wlv.ac.uk mailto:c.a.hammond@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2995-2393 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9592-9693 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-5364 prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 2 early view unethically in an academic qualification to deliver improved levels of literacy alongside improved grade scores. the emphasis is entirely instrumentalist with employers needs shaping classroom provision, for instance with employers calling for more onus on ‘oral communication’ (hall et al., 1999). it appears that teachers with subject specialisms in english are distrusted to teach and marginalised by others, such as curriculum designers and employer focus groups; as such ‘the object of activity is in satisfying the institutional and authoritarian outliers defining ‘literacy’’ (scott, 2018: 3). literacy without creativity is banal and literacy that is taught in a functional and performative manner – to the test, to improve an institution’s scores, to help secure a job or one’s economic prosperity – is transactional, and lacks deeper integrity, as reported by the chair of hepi: ‘creating art or appreciating artistic endeavour is seen as producing a nation with an enriched cultural and social life, and a possible route to personal fulfilment. but there is a flaw in the logic that says to count is to be economically productive, but to create is not.’ (last 2017: 1). the gcse is the supposed gold standard in literacy, though it is conflated with ‘english’ (as literature and language) and functions much more as an opportunity for assessment than a course of study. this is reinforced by the 2011 policy recommendation from professor alison wolf’s review of vocational education that school-leavers entering the postcompulsory fe and vocational sector are compelled to re-sit the english (and maths) schools qualification if they have not secured a “decent” ‘c’ standard pass in school. the resits policy has not been effective – if success is determined by students meeting the required c (or ‘4’) grade at the second or third attempt, the policy can often be seen to compound existing failure (hughes, 2018). in our experiences as fe teachers, 16 year old school leavers are demoralised and discouraged by the resit experience, with some fe students obliged to re-sit it until the age of 19 while undertaking demanding vocational courses. where results are determined by the terminal assessment of a rigid written exam, claims to address the traditional components: speaking, listening, reading, and writing, largely consist of studying archaic english texts, with a fixation on the memorisation of classroom-based grammar. such approaches have little cultural relevance to many students and, worse still, remain the single, prime option for adults returning to college, who are often surprised to discover that education has been in stasis since leaving school. one slight variation is the option of functional skills, a slightly more flexible post-compulsory level 2 equivalent, with varied entry points and assessments by exam and graded work. functional skills tends to be less regarded, has no formal parity to the gcse and is often not recognised as accredited literacy for higher education access. this effectively creates a two-tiered system of literacy across the lines of vocational and academic routes (duckworth and smith, 2019) that has been said to denigrate the dignity of students (scott, 2018). the impact of this extends beyond students: situating literacy within such a narrow framework has a negative impact on teaching, and the recruitment and retention of newly qualified teaching staff; often, they find little agency to teach the subject with enthusiasm and passion, as it is stultified by curriculum constraints. the message that achievement in ‘english’ is framed on either ‘success’ or ‘failure’ leads us to draw the conclusion that improper policy and the poorly imagined design of literacy for schools is, for too many students, disenfranchising. wolf’s recommendations that led to the resit policy intended, rightly, to arrest a perceived decline in literacy standards; though the language of incline and decline keeps us shackled to the literacy ladder that lynn tett (2013) problematised. therefore, it would appear that the teaching of ‘english’ as a disciplinary subject in schools is an ineffective vehicle for driving up literacy standards; furthermore, the gcse framework is an ill-fitting system, especially within fe where students expect a different experience to that of school – which was often disciplinarian and negative (anderson and peart, 2015; smith and wright, 2015). it is against this ‘literacy landscape’ that we, as teaching staff at a widening participation university situated in the midlands, lead our module for adult students. laura rendón’s insistence that ‘[w]e need prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 3 early view to validate students’ capacities for intellectual development at the beginning, not at the end, of their academic careers’ in order to ensure that they feel worthy and valued (rendón, 1992: 63), underscores the ethos of our short course. as lavender and tuckett also state, traditionally, ‘[d]ifficulties with literacy [are] seen as a feature of personal aptitude’ (2020: 33). we recognise that our students are inquisitive, enthusiastic, and eager to learn and perceive any deficit as being about confidence. what they tend to share across the teaching the course is analogous with many others returning to classrooms as mature students: a sense of being alienated from educational environments; and a desire to reclaim their dignity in and through learning. understanding this, alongside freire’s perspective of liberation as ‘transforming actions’ and his concept of ‘conscientization’, gives us a sound basis for method. ‘conscientization’ is cited as similar to agency – being able to act upon the world and reality and to transform one’s life. this – we feel – contextualises and orientates the educational philosophy of the course and our approach to teaching. 2. pedagogical approach to access to he the students involved in this course participate in a preliminary 12-week ‘inclusive education’ module prior to their involvement on an undergraduate course. the ‘inclusive education’ module runs once a week for 3 hours, with an hour in the afternoon following a morning session. numbers are high and increase year on year; its first iteration in 2018, was attended by 35 students, and this increased in 20212022 to 80. the pedagogical approach – now in its fourth year of implementation – has remained the same in focus and manner, and is outlined below. we start from the perspective that the outcomes (‘learning objectives’) of the course are not significant and this emancipates teachers and students alike. there are formal outcomes, which are outlined below – learners will: • demonstrate an understanding of current debates in the field of inclusive education and practice • relate concepts and theories of inclusion to current educational practice • reflect on your understanding of inclusion and educational practice effectively in a given format importantly, we avoid being bound by these outcomes; the module description reinforces this by inviting students to explore their own beliefs and values towards meaningful lifelong learning. we also underpin the course by a set of implied and aspirational objectives: we want to celebrate “who” the students are (rather than who they are “not”), and what the students have to offer as opposed to what they may lack. we prefer students to view learning as a series of encounters and episodes, rather than a set of targets measured by assessment. holistically, we aim to create a community of writers and a formal sense of belonging within he to equip adult students with the potential to re-evaluate their educational biographies. we also carry some assumptions: a) our students arrive with rich life experiences, but perspectives of education that may not be generally positive. b) some of the negative experiences they have encountered are due to their not being recognised for who they are. their accents, backgrounds, contributions are unvalued, discredited and ignored and they feel peripheral to inclusion. c) their expectations of education can be diminished from the beginning. d) as mature students, they may be intimidated by formal education, teachers, classrooms and particularly the writing process. e) they need to feel that they belong. our aims are to eliminate their apprehensions by enculturating confidence and participation, to denounce the fetishisation of grading written work, while creating a scaffolded support mechanism through free writing that confronts and celebrates whomsoever our students are becoming. we manage this through the teaching of content – general social, psychological, and educational theory – in order that a language can codify the personal transformation. prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 4 early view the course comprises two main teachers, with graduate teaching assistants supporting, who also lead on sessions. we make a rough plan of what to cover as content, which has tended to be based on educational theorists who might be classed as ‘critical pedagogues’, including ivan illich, though the course has also extended to academics, cultural figures and commentators from gilles deleuze, basil bernstein, albert bandura, ken robinson, and bell hooks. as we sought to set a context for thinking and a basis for writing, most of these theorists were, initially, introduced to give the programme a working structure; conceptual links were established iteratively and collaboratively from week to week. however, as we continued to develop the programme, by the second year of delivery we started to see the content as largely superfluous; and by the third year, we started to use the authors and theorists to give shape to a deterritorialisation of ‘inclusivity’. by “drawing in” the students themselves, we started to locate biographic reference points that spoke more closely to them. as a culturally diverse group, the incorporation of bell hooks, w. e. b. du bois, and more local theorists, academics, and cultural figures such as professor stuart hall, gary thomas, rob smith, kris kristofferson, morrissey, jim showell, liz berry, etc. as a result, each session now tends to be delivered through the following routine: two hours of content, followed by a one-hour lunchbreak, and then a final hour dedicated to a free-writing reflection activity. the final part is explained as voluntary, an opportunity to synthesise the day’s content and discussions, a space to enable students to process the day’s content. however, rather than encourage the students to integrate the cascaded knowledge, we invite them to negotiate meaning-making, by drawing on and incorporating their own ‘previous experiences’. as this is a free-writing exercise, we set no expectations or demands for them to explain or demonstrate a technical understanding of concepts or theories; but rather, to reflect on an – indeed any – aspect of the material that has chimed with them, and to write about this in an honest and personalised way. the main thing, we stress, is to write freely, as part of a low-stakes approach, freed from the traditional academic concerns of theoretical content, grammar, and other bases for judging and grading written work. we aim to inculcate a sense of dialogue and support with each student; so, when we return the work to the students, we offer only positive feedback and praise, along with the building of further questions (and memos). 3. research design & ethics as part of this section, we include samples extracted from the students writings – both as primary data, to address and include the students’ sense of self, and becoming writers, and also to illustrate the academic content of the curriculum, and how this is complemented by personal meaningmaking through the free-writing exercises. given the personal nature of the largely autobiographical material, we ensured ethical principles and processes were met. we explained to the students, on a weekly basis, that the free-writing exercise was fulfilling the following pedagogic purposes: to develop inclusion, confidence, and a sense of self as writer. we ensured that participating students were comfortable with us using the samples of their writing. as part of securing their consent, we explained that we wished to use aspects of their writing, to illustrate how the module is constructed, and how it operates as part of a paper for a formal journal submission. we approached all individuals whose writing contributions would be used in this paper retrospectively at the course end to gain consent for inclusion here. we ensured anonymity by randomly allocating pseudonyms, which were then applied to the sampled quotes, to mitigate against potential harm resulting from personal disclosures. there may be considered a question of plagiarism regarding the citation of the samples used, but we consider the extracts to be akin to vignettes to highlight the students (as research participants) views (kara, 2015). ethical approval was secured from the university, through an application to the ethics committee; as part of this, we explained our intention to use student’s personal writing extracts, as a way to highlight the construction, operation and outputs generated by our particular course. we acknowledge that using student contributions for the purposes of academic publication can be problematic. however, prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 5 early view following watson’s work (2011), we achieved consensus by sharing drafts of the paper with the students, and entering in dialogue with them, to ensure that their thoughts and views were accurately represented. 4. discussion mezirow (1978) outlined how certain trigger events precipitate a challenge to existing mental models and schemata for meaning making. in learning contexts, these can be induced by the introduction of new information that initiates critical reflection. mezirow labels these ‘disorientating dilemmas’ and suggests they can become the prompts for transformative experiences, where decisions, memories and responses are internalised into potentially new processes or ways of seeing, doing and being. these disorientating dilemmas have much in common with ‘threshold concepts’ (meyer and land, 2005), where a shift occurs in ontological position and changes in perspective accompany transition points in the learning journey. meyer and land argue that significant changes in perspective are probably irreversible; therefore, the traversing of threshold phases can be complex and emotional, but also empowering.1 barriers can be interpersonal or intrapersonal and may be situational (circumstantial, e.g., domestic obligations for the student) or institutional (e.g., organisational practices around learning institutions, limited tutorial support, pastoral care, lack of facilities). we might also add that there may be cultural barriers, such as alienation from a curriculum that lacks significance or relevance; here, arguments relating to ‘decolonising the curriculum’, which signify the importance of providing not only a diverse curriculum, but also promoting culturally situated knowledge, can be important. rancière, who remains a significant reference point throughout the module, might see the model of the threshold concept as a way of writing poiesis, i.e., an approach that brings something new into being that 1 meyer and land note that, ‘there are ‘conceptual gateways’ or ‘portals’ that lead to a previously inaccessible, and initially perhaps ‘troublesome’, way of thinking about something. a new way of understanding, interpreting, or viewing something may thus emerge – a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even did not previously exist. this, in turn, can produce a dissensus – the disruption of consensus – of the ‘the idea of the proper’, which traditionally surrounds and defines the academic work that students produce. rancière sees this as a necessary method of equality in the face of ‘hierarchical distributions where everyone's speech is determined in terms of their proper place and their activity in terms of its proper function, without remainder’ (corcoran in rancière 2010: 4). our commitment then, as rancière suggests, is to oblige our students to realize their capacity to create, as it were, ‘a circle of power homologous to the circle of powerlessness that ties the student to the explicator of the old method’ (rancière 1991: 15). we are aware that we have the privilege of autonomy to teach the way that we wish, in conjunction with this, we have the luxury of fairly small groups, which supports an educational approach that sets out to confront barriers and obstacles in the negotiation of transformative threshold experiences. in this sense, rancière could be describing our own students when he notes, ‘[t]he circle of powerlessness is always already there: it is the very workings of the social world’, and that the circle of power, ‘can only take effect by being made public’. he concludes that this can only appear as an absurdity, a response that we have also experienced from our own students, as a result of inviting them to write in this way. initially, students are invariably nonplussed, taken aback, even faintly amused. however, this is quickly overtaken by a sense of nervous purpose once it is clear that ‘discourses organized with the goal of being right’ have been disabled and a method of equality has been instituted in which group members ‘find the right sentences to make themselves understood by others.’ (rancière 1991: 44). week by week, we start to ritualise the free-writing process, so that students become accustomed to its style and outputs. students submit their work, but as we have stated, we only provide positive feedback in world view … they may be transformative (occasioning a significant shift in the perception of a subject), irreversible (unlikely to be forgotten, or unlearned only through considerable effort), and integrative (exposing the previously hidden interrelatedness of something).’ (2005: 373) prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 6 early view order to create a dialogic exchange with our comments, questions, and ideas. quotes from previous free-writing pieces tend to reappear and feature as part of subsequent writing sessions; as a form of co-created curriculum, this helps to weld or connect related theoretical content as part of the unfolding narrative thread. the writing and our feedback is not intended to incorporate or emplace the role of the teacher, and importantly, it is in no sense a form of graded assessment. rather it constitutes a vital part of each session and fosters an ongoing sense of progress within and across the course, (reimagined as a collective of writers in transit). it demonstrates the value of all manner of things (e.g., thoughtfulness, ideas, communication, one another, the collective), and anchors pretty much everything else we do in relation to the thoughtful opinions of others – and this includes ourselves. it is a rare opportunity in life to be free to write, and to write freely, without judgment or cost (especially for students); as such, we are always surprised by the levels of passion and innovation that manifest, once the students are afforded the chance – and accept the invitation to – write creatively, with openness and honesty. it is so important to recall here, that our students often have memories of difficult formative experiences, in one typical instance, chris disclosed: “i am someone who now knows i am someone who can do anything if i put my mind to it, regardless of what i have done in the past, work or education.” as such, we recognise that we host and convene a platform for transformation. we cherish this and note that the experience is enlivening and liberating for ourselves as teachers in the he environment. our students’ free writing expressions show how their confidence increases in preparation for study on a formal degree course: “today i am happy. i am proud … i am breaking the mould.” (jade) most students write willingly and easily, some need prompts, which we keep light to start with, for example: ‘what did you learn today?’, which evokes stunning responses that confirm to us that ‘content’, while important, is only a trigger or platform for people to learn about their own self-efficacy: “today i learnt i can be who i want to be. today i evolved.” (kemisha) lianne shows how the writing gives this opportunity for self-actualisation and reification – a transformative sense of becoming, which is supported through a scaffolded language and by a collective commitment to making the curriculum. the contributions of student voices alongside our own and those of other theorists are never forced. the whole endeavour is an exercise in inclusion played out in real time and subject to the normal standards of scholarly interaction. the student community enacts the curriculum with trust, and this is more than repaid at every level, “language growth is the real thing that improves communication” (beth). the writing invites expression: it never asks, ‘do you understand’, preferring ‘what have you got to say (for yourself)?’ it endeavours to situate writing as creation, answering deleuze’s call for a ritualistic “resistance to the present”. the writing time, which comes with a guarantee of readers, creates a reliable weekly ritual, among other things a haven from what barthes calls the “whole disorder” of speech and its devouring momentum. as one of our students deftly put it: “what i write; this is me” (chevelle). the ideas allow us to actively realise our ambitions for a pedagogy that escapes notions of mastery and embraces an equality which is method, not aspiration. although this module is not a writing course, by creating opportunities for free-writing in a non-judgemental, inclusive environment we create an expressive space for writing that becomes routine and reduces anxieties around formal literacy. however, this is not principally about deficits of any kind and in a short time it is not about deficits at all. as work is produced and showcased, an energy for the possible is generated, akin to ‘the power you give yourself by assuming the other person can hear you’ (rancière 2016: 71). it is in this way, rather than through a focus on ‘training’ undergraduate skills, that we address the principle of providing a foundation for further study. we are in the business of developing a community of writers who are firstly asked to step up as subjects of their own stories. this subjectivization as rancière describes it, ‘firstly occurs in the sense of taking the floor and speaking’ and this is both literally and metaphorically what is happening prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 7 early view in the classroom and on the page, but this really is only the beginning. through the convergence of student writings, the module content is borne proper, as a testing ground for new experiences and language emerges; in academic terms, this is a transition from mutism to speech. this is rancière’s description, as he insists that this transition ‘is made using words that aren't yours, that already exist, the subversive act being the appropriation of those words.’ this model of appropriation fits our experience exactly and reinforces our claim to have established this as a method for developing student writers. we start explicitly to fuse a vocabulary and theory into the writing to work in line with the formal course objectives (i.e., prepare students for he) but only on their own terms. again, as rancière explains ‘what counts is the appropriation of speech that allows you to tell your personal experience differently, to subjectify daily experience and phrase it in a language that is no longer the language of everyday life or of work’. rancière indeed identifies several forms of appropriation, as we have, including the rhetorical speech associated with membership of an academic community and ‘poetic speech through which experience can be re-described’ (rancière 2016: 71). after one session, a student returned to explain that she had left the morning session, gone to lunch and sat alone writing a poem on her mobile, which she wanted to share with us, (but was unsure whether it was suitable as a ‘formal’ piece of work). composed in couplets, it beautifully captured the day’s discussions on the multiple roles and responsibilities that make inclusive education challenging: “this morning i woke up as a mother, and as the day progressed i turned into another” (mursal) after getting charlene’s permission to share this, we had further examples of writing submitted as poetry: “i am loud. i am quiet. i am outspoken. i am free. when i write; this is me. what i write; this is me.” (bria) these declarations strike us sometimes as suppressed expressions given vent for catharsis. at other moments, the writing, shown here through poetry, is a reclamation of personal voice, dialect and sociolect given performance in the educational environment. thus, through the appropriation of the borrowed language and structures of poetry comes a new appreciation of silence and sound: “umma proud aunty da luv to sing, i play wit ma nieces n nephews out unda the tree. you see, wen we outside anything is possible we dance, we sing, we run, our imagination runs wild ‘sing for meh tantie’ day would say ‘ahyah lawd try go play’ wat else i mus say.” (nikeva) the ritual of writing as a form of membership evokes a ‘community of equals’, (rancière) – a company of the recognised, who are also emancipated by their own actions. the parallels are striking as rancière also predicates his model on a society who would ‘repudiate the division between those who know and those who don’t, between those who possess or don’t possess the property of intelligence’. it is also an active community who ‘would only know minds in action: people who do, who speak about what they are doing, and who thus transform all their works into ways of demonstrating the humanity that is in them as in everyone’ (rancière 1991: 71). “i believe we need to be educated in society about life skills, different backgrounds and situations of others, learning how other people live.” (greg). as stated earlier, our students’ experiences of formal education have often been problematic or disrupted – sometimes by domestic circumstances, learning difficulties, exclusion, or numerous other factors. we are confronted with a need to teach something (anything) to satisfy all demands, but we recognise that this is a particularly unique context where we have immense freedom to map the module as we see fit. writing is critical to that, for as boyd (2008) has pronounced ‘young people write themselves into being’. the question is whether this writing is to be acknowledged, encouraged, or even allowed, as irigaray complains, ‘[t]hey never taught us prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 8 early view nor allowed us to say our multiplicity. that would have been improper speech.’ (irigaray 1992: 207). in this context we insist on their freedom to write as themselves without judgment and they all have much to say. as was also stated earlier, we teach theories apropos of inclusive education, but are insistent that content is less important than context, for instance how such theory is embodied into the lifeworld of students. an example is given of teaching bernstein’s restricted and elaborate codes from linguistics; in the classroom, this theory was explained in its terms of its applicability to education, and the resulting conversations were encapsulated personally in the free writing exercise by karielle: “language has always been a barrier for me. coming from a working class black country family, i have been raised with a limited and common vocabulary” (karielle) and isra shared an example of how idiolect is important for inclusion: “each child has many ways of language, and this is what makes them so unique, an important individual.” (isra) we explained in subsequent sessions how bernstein’s ideas are considered quite dated and elitist today to show how theory evolves. this explanation drew the above quote from isra’s free writing product to show how personal language is a hallmark of identity. after we had explored bernstein’s theories we gave a simple prompt, ‘who are you today?’ which resulted in a beautiful evocation of our course in the words of a student that we feel really captures the essence of this course and its endeavours. “who am i today? smile, yah beautiful people would say, kind words comes out of my mouth i’ve grown and feel so empowered about myself who to think da i go university rite now: ah just laugh at maself. i’m the rose that grew outta concrete.” circumstances. 5. conclusion as stated earlier, ‘free-writing’ as an expressive practice is lamentably absent from formal education as it is from other contexts in life. we posit that the tired, drab, and unimaginative landscape for literacy in post-compulsory education – one framed entirely around personal deficit models, instrumentalism, and the transaction of students development for vocational prospects demeans the affordances that personally arise from the practices we have outlined. one only needs to look at the final words from ‘who am i today’ and considers how such eloquence and craft would be received on a formal gcse course to see that the ‘english’ that is being delivered bears no resemblance to a living language. if that freedom is stifled, silence is the sentence – and that is not something we should entertain as a possibility or objective. the subjective must be emancipated. prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 9 early view 6. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 7. acknowledgements the author(s) wish to acknowledge the many students whose writing illuminates this paper. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) scott, bennett & hammond (2022) prism 10 early view 9. references boyd, d. (2008). why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life. in buckingham, d. (ed.) youth, identity and digital media. (pp. 119-142) the mit press. duckworth, v., and smith, r. (2019). further educations: transformative teaching and learning for adults in times of austerity. in being an adult learner in austere times (pp. 151-177). palgrave macmillan, cham. hall, i. hardman, f. smith, f. and taverner, s. (1999) the relevance of gcse mathematics and english as preparation for employment, journal of vocational education and training, 51:2, 283-305, https://doi.org/10.1080/13636829900200080 hughes, d (2018) 'gcse resit policy is still failing', tes, available online 11/2/21 irigaray, l. (1992) elemental passions (trans. joanne collie and judith still). new york: routledge. kara, h (2015). creative research methods in the social sciences: a practical guide. policy press, bristol. last, j. (2017). a crisis in the creative arts in the uk?. higher education policy institute. meyer, jan hf, and land, r. (2005) threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. higher education 49.3 (2005): 373-388 peim, n. (1994) critical theory and the english teacher, london; routledge rancière, j. (1991), the ignorant schoolmaster: five lessons in intellectual emancipation, stanford: stanford u.p. rancière, j. (2010), dissensus: on politics and aesthetics, london; continuum rancière, j. (2016) the method of equality, cambridge; polity press rendón, l. (1992) from the barrio to the academy: revelations of a mexican american “scholarship girl” in new directions for community colleges: volume1992, issue80 (winter 1992): pages 55-64 scott, h. e. (2018). through the wall of literacy: transformative practice in social networks among gcse re-sit further education students. education+ training. smith, r. and wright, v. (2015) the possibilities of reengagement: cultures of literacy education and socalled neets, research in post-compulsory education, 20:4, 400-418, https://doi.org/10.1080/13596748.2015.1081751 tett, l. (2013), academic literacies in p. mayo (ed.) learning with adults: a reader, rotterdam: sense publishers pp. 275-284 lavender, p and tuckett, a. (2020). inspired by freire: from literacy to community. how the ideas of paulo freire shaped work in the uk, in the adult learner 2020 the irish journal of adult and community education, aontas, dublin. watson, c. (2011) staking a small claim for fictional narratives in social and educational research. qualitative research 11 (4) 395–408. wolf, a. (2011). review of vocational education. dfe: london. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636829900200080 https://doi.org/10.1080/13596748.2015.1081751 prism journal prism volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 126 © 2020 prism book review: brokering britain, educating citizens exploring esol and citizenship. (2019) melanie cooke & rob peutrell (eds); 264 pages; bristol: multilingual matters isbn: 978-1-78892-461-0 (pbk), (doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/cooke4627), £24.95 andrew ford university centre blackburn college, blackburn, uk (andrew.ford@blackburn.ac.uk) received: 20/05/2020 accepted for publication: 10/06/2020 published: 11/06/2020 1. review the authors of brokering britain, educating citizens: exploring esol and citizenship (2019) usefully consider a set of ideas and discussion points, that will suit any contemporary practitioner, who feels that their values and ethics are in conflict with government policy; furthermore, they consider the extent to which the profession of esol is built on a set of humanistic principles that contradict or even seem to work directly against the agenda of the current government? with a primary focus on esol (english for speakers of other languages), the book focuses on the areas of citizenship, language, and agency, and considers the classroom as a site of potential resistance in relation to the non-progressive governmental regime. an edited collection, the structure of the book offers a coherent and cumulative argument as a whole, as well as a series of episodic chapters, that operate effectively on their own. generally, the authors suggest that esol can be a site of resistance, which is a refreshing and critical alternative to more mainstream (media-based) narratives around citizenship and migrants. the argument is agentive, in that the esol classroom can allow both esol practitioners and students to engage in – and develop – an empowered agency, capable of resisting the mainstream narratives of ‘swarms’ (david cameron) and ‘hostile environments.’ the book offers hope, in the suggestion that such freedom can still occur, due to the complex and imperfect relation between policy initiatives from government and their everyday application in specific esol classrooms. in this critical sense, esol tutors can act as ‘brokers’ mediating the space between policy initiatives at the strategic level, and the everyday environment where the students learn english. the book suggests that it is because of the ambiguity around the concepts of, (and, the relationship between), citizenship, language, and belonging, that a space is opened for teachers and their https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ https://doi.org/10.21832/cooke4627 mailto:andrew.ford@blackburn.ac.uk prism ford (2020) prism 127 3(1) students to develop and exert their agency. clearly, adapting and implementing the principles of policy in this way, is not what the government intends – nor would necessarily support. the book’s editors, melanie cook and rob peutrell, between them, they have significant experience of esol; with over 60 years’ in the sector. melanie cook is a lecturer in esol at king’s college london and has published numerous books and journal articles on the subject. rob peutrell is also an esol lecturer in further education and has also worked in learning support, which i suspect, has informed some of the useful insights and unique features of the book. for the most part, the text employs an ethnographic approach. it is concerned with the meanings generated by social actors in their settings. the ethnographies take place in several settings including classrooms, neighbourhoods, and communities. there are two exceptions to this, the first being chapter 1, which provides for the reader a vital background in the area. it gives a brief history of government approaches to ‘immigration.’ the other chapter that deviates from the ethnographic approach, is chapter 10, which explores several seminars on intersectionality and esol run by academics, practitioners, and students. usefully, the text also addresses and engages with queer theory. of particular interest was chapter 6 that questioned the logocentric (language centred) approach usually found in academia. it engaged with visual ethnography and visual participatory methods. it was also one of the chapters to develop the idea of ‘dis’ citizenship. an idea taken from the disabled people’s movement that focuses on differing embodiments in disabling environments. the dis-citizen disabled by a ‘hostile environment.’ the text has many strengths. i was made to think about esol, language, and practitioners in a new way. much of the book chimed with my own experience working in adult social care and later in the neighbourhood department of the local authority tutoring basic skills. i was impressed with the way the text addressed the obvious potential for logocentric approaches that are inherent in esol. it addressed the embodied experience of the students and this made its approach significantly more inclusive and again chimed with my experience working for a local authority. i also liked the way in which the text engaged with ‘dis’ politics. this enabled it to explore how a disabling environment can disempower people by ultimately making them dis-citizens. the disabled people’s movement has struggled with the idea of the ‘body’ for a long time. for much of its history, the disabled people’s movement has tried to make a clear distinction between an individual body and the disabling environment (or society) the body finds itself in. the body was left to what it called ‘the medical model.’ this was done for specific political purposes, to make the environment disabling for people. most critical disability theory wishes to problematise that hard distinction between the body (individual) and the disabling environment (society) and so, for me, the text gave an extremely useful social account of both the body and its dis-empowering environment. however, there is also a weakness with the book, and that is how it relates – overall – to the tension between the individual and the dis-empowering environment (society). a closer look at the disabled people’s movement could have helped navigate this tension; by inadvertently blurring this distinction, the text seemingly led down a number of political dead ends. as jenny morris (rethinking disability policy, 2011) has pointed out, many of the concerns of the movement played directly into the hands of a government that was concerned to reduce costs, cut funding and then blame individual disabled people for the ensuing mess. giles deleuze is very fashionable at the moment, and the authors may well have benefitted from utilising this framework. in his book ‘foucault’ (deleuze, 1986) deleuze notes that the paradigmatic form of power in our society is to ‘see without being seen.’ he uses the metaphor of light, in that we can see something / someone when they are lit up. the opposite of this is anonymity. people who are anonymous, live in the shadows, are hidden, and are not held to account. the goal of power, therefore, is to shine a light on those that they wish to control whilst avoiding scrutiny themselves. prism ford (2020) prism 128 3(1) the book shines a light on the agency of esol tutors and their students. it opens them up to our scrutiny. however, it’s beam is less potent where the wrecking ball of a government – that can, in one evening pass the first reading of an immigration bill, that identifies foreign, low pay, low skilled workers as not being wanted in this country – is concerned. overall, i think that the book will appeal to, and have something to say to, anyone who hankers after a more progressive politics, especially in relation to the notion of citizenship. and, as i noted above, one particular strength is how it informs writing on esol by incorporating ideas of the dis-citizen and socially embodied approaches. it is well written and reasonably easy to read. it would be of great use to practitioners, academics, and students. i personally will be asking my undergraduate students to read sections of the book. as a text, it is a valuable contribution that focuses on the agency of esol teachers and their students. prism ford (2020) prism 129 3(1) 2. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 3. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 4. to cite this article: ford, a. (2020). brokering britain, educating citizens exploring esol and citizenship. (2019). prism, 3(1), 126-130 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301203 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism ford (2020) prism 130 3(1) 5. references deleuze, g. (1986). foucault. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. morris, j. (2011). rethinking disability policy. york: joseph rowntree foundation. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 62 augmented reality: a pleasure or a pain? copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 62-77 william shepherd lee fishwick university centre at blackburn college university centre at blackburn college william.shepherd@blackburn.ac.uk lee.fishwick@blackburn.ac.uk david crighton sean starkie university centre at blackburn college university centre at blackburn college david.crighton@blackburn.ac.uk sean.starkie@blackburn.ac.uk abstract the following is a post-research discussion that reviews the findings of an action research project into augmented reality (ar) in the classroom. 1. introduction 1.1 augmented reality in the classroom our group decided to try using augmented reality (ar) as part of our teaching methodology. it seemed as though it was a good fit as a technology. for example, there are apps such as blippar that allowed free educational use. after a discussion with colleagues, we thought we would see if we could up-skill the students with the technology and evaluate it for use as a teaching tool using an action research approach. we struggle with technology in the classrooms which mostly have just whiteboards and projectors. we thought it might be an interesting approach to utilise the phone in students’ pockets as a learning tool. the aim was to see if ar increased student engagement in a range of sessions. we adopted three different approaches with different types of student to see the impact. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 63 1. lecturer led, lecturer content: sean starkie is our work-based learning lecturer who created interactive lessons using ar as a stimulus for in-class activities. he created the content, delivered it, and led the discussions around the topic. the students were from a retail degree. 2. lecturer led, student content: i (ws) worked with level 6 business students to design a revision app based on their own created materials. the idea was that they would have their own bespoke learning environment, one they had created, although i led the project and ultimately created the app for them. 3. student led, student content – lee fishwick took a slightly different approach allowing students to choose their technology option rather than using ar and blippar. the students ended up creating an online glossary and learning space for other students using a platform called padlet. they rejected the complexity of ar and looked for a tool that focused on functionality and ease of use. the students were from a coaching and mentoring degree. 1.2 results students enjoyed the project but did not feel it had a long-term impact. they were concerned that it felt like a lot of hurdles to learning such as downloading the app and so on. the students initially enjoyed creating the material and the app. interestingly, one of them went home and downloaded each of the ar images and printed them out, creating a traditional handbook which they shared with others. this was a real reversal from the concept of using digital technology! the feedback also showed that most students did not have enough space on their phones for non-essential apps so were deleting it soon after downloading it. lf encouraged full interactivity on the glossary, and it included the ability to vote/thumbs up the good pieces of work others had done. the feedback highlighted that students felt that they had learnt a lot and intend to use the platform moving forward. overall, we thought we were looking at ar in the classroom, but the underpinning feedback was around how students want to learn, coupled with a battle for space on their phone. there was also an ‘a-ha’ moment when we realised that we were using a new technology, but a more traditional delivery method. rather than building the learning around prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 64 the technological abilities, we were using it to deliver a traditional approach, thus not changing the learning paradigm. rather than write up the results in a more traditional form, we thought that we could use the form of a podcast to have a discussion around the idea, again trying to leverage different technologies. we included a colleague who came from a media background in the discussion as he works in the education team and so had some interesting insights. while ar has a place in learning, currently there are too many hurdles for it to be an easy solution within our lecture spaces. the investment and time required to create an immersive experience is beyond our current capabilities, so we were creating a single journey of learning based on our view of the world rather than the students. 1.3 researcher profiles lee fishwick (lf): i am a lecturer here in coaching and mentoring. and my work with this project was introducing a piece of technology called padlet. sean starkie (ss): i am the industry links lecturer on work-based learning modules across the business school and my approach here was to introduce some kind of augmented reality within the work-based learning module. david crighton (dc): i am a lecturer on the education studies course here at blackburn. in a previous life, i taught but my background is in media, with a degree in film and media from bradford college. william shepherd (ws): i am a business lecturer who worked on the augmented reality project, taking a student-led approach but doing it without technology. 2. discussion what was the augmented reality (ar) project? we attempted to use augmented reality in three different ways, undertaking some action research to see how it would work across a range of subjects in a higher education (he) and further education (fe) environment. ws took a student-led content approach with lectureled development of app, sean’s approach was a lecture-led content and lecture-led app, and prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 65 then lee took a student-centric approach. this gave us a range of viewpoints with different students and subjects to test the ar implementation. the software tool we had decided to use was blippar, a free tool for educational use. lf: when we first started the project, i was on board with augmented reality (ar) and because of my background in exploring technology, i think i brought a different challenge. even at the outset, i didn't feel that augmented reality matched what i needed my students to learn. so, with the permission of the group i took a different direction. and that's why i did padlet, because i chose technology that i thought better fit the learning experiences i wanted to generate in the classroom for my learners. there will be more of that but for me. when i am exposed to new technology, it always starts me thinking about appropriateness because one other thing that we discovered was that there is so much change, so much development in technology, that it's hard to keep pace. often what catches our eyes, and we laugh about it, is the shiniest thing. when we first started talking about ar, we saw it and it was awesome and it was interesting and exciting, and i think all of us share a desire to engage our students’ curiosity and get them interested. so, actually, i think our initial enthusiasm around this could really be great. it could really engage our students in a new way. i was really excited about it, but when i looked at what i wanted to generate in the classroom it didn't work for me. i looked around and decided to use padlet as a different way forward. ss: i would consider myself a bit of a tech geek, so when i saw the prototypes on youtube and around the internet showing what could be done with ar i was massively on board and excited about what i might be able to do. but the reality is that we have a cost restraint, in that we had very little money to start the project. we also had time constraints and my technical expertise was also lacking. what we actually produced was a much more watered-down version than what i actually envisioned at the outset. however, with that said, what we did produce and what the students used in terms of ar got some really positive feedback. the students enjoyed it and prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 66 it worked from my teaching point of view, albeit with restraints from a lack of further tools to be able to use it from a technical standpoint. ws: and i guess the key question is have you used it this year, have you used it since you tried it as a part of the project? ss: i have not used it again this year, but i intend to use it further down the line next semester. i used it for a part of the second assignment in work-based learning which we haven't started yet, so i haven't been able to reproduce anything. ws: so, are you planning to use it again? ss: i plan to use it again definitely. ws: for myself i used the augmented reality app as a revision tool for my students. they created the content in class, and i turned that into an app. the outcome of this was incredibly surprising for me – the following week one of the students came in with printed versions of the app. they had been on the app, downloaded all the material and printed it out as a handout for the rest of the students, removing the need for them to use the app! this was an interesting experiment in how things work, and that showed for me that ar wasn’t something that would work in its current form. post-research follow-up showed that that student feedback focused on a few key areas. one was that our students tend to have very full phones, so there is a battleground for tech space. these phones are used for everything, from you know a sort of music player, internet browser and photo albums. asking them to put another app on their phones required taking something away which was always the challenge. they might need to delete photos of their kids or a revision app. this is increasingly important as we work in an area that is relatively deprived, and people tend not to have the latest smartphones which in turn means they have less storage space on their devices. another hurdle was the technology because they weren't used to it. they weren't used to ar, they found that it became a barrier to learning, resorting to printing it off because there prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 67 is no barrier between them and a piece of paper even though technically it is their own content. what do you think are the challenges of technology in the classroom? dc: well coming from my last job i had to think in a differently from the way you three have approached your research. i had to try to put the brakes on my film students from using technology. they would come to me excited about the latest camera technology which would detract from the craft they were supposed to be learning. they got really pulled into the aesthetics of filmmaking and media making at the expense of the process. i have tried a tech project in the first term here at blackburn, where i've got the students to think about creating a podcast as a form of assessment. it was a totally different experience to teaching media studentsfrom session one i have encouraged the use of technology and the initial enthusiasm from the students was there. however, as time got closer to the assessment point the students engaged less with the technology aspect and the podcast became a straightforward audio presentation. in the beginning their ideas included interviewing people in the community and editing that in. so, i think it's important when you are thinking about the subject area in which tech's been used, does it have an impact upon and enhance the learning. ss: i think going back to what you said about living in the area that we live in; it is a relatively deprived area and it may come down to experiences students have had previously with other technologies. i think if they haven't had exposure to some of this technology, they will be reluctant to use it. lf: for me listening to dave talk there, that really struck me. what you describe here was that there was a main fact there a parallel process of what happened with those, where it's shiny and it's exciting and it's new. and they love the sound of it and actually i think there is something very interesting for us there. you engage them and they were curious, and for me these are two major ingredients in learning. but time constraints seem to suggest that there is a journey that they need to go on to become comfortable with technology and adapt to it to some extent to make it a tool that's prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 68 useful for them that they are comfortable with. but we don't have the time for that. what you described is, as they get closer to the deadline, they abandon ship and they jump off. because as much as they would love to do it and there is an excitement about, like “i would love to try that,” the pressure of assessment means that the stress sometimes is just that “i can't be dealing with that. i am going to revert back to what i know”. this is what the human does when they are under stress. they don't take risks and they don't want to be creative; they want to play it safe. that’s what i see in that situation. dc: i had a student say to me that they were so excited at first because it was totally different, but as we got closer it terrified them and i couldn't understand why. coming from teaching a creative subject into teaching education, which i am totally passionate about, i think for technology to work for education students in a creative way i need to restructure my teaching of it to groups unfamiliar with the tech. lf: the reason that padlet works for me was that straight away, it’s easy to learn, and once i try to engage with it, easy to use. this was highlighted by our ba honours groups in coaching and counselling. some of the modules are debating modules where we debate key issues. and for me those debates often give the students a chance to rehearse, being critical and evaluative about the topics that they study. now inevitably they all go in different directions and their collections send them into different places. now what often happens is all of that great range of resourcing gets kept within the confines of just that student, or a little group they might have worked in. what padlet offers is a place where all of these resources can be landed. now that's normal and we have seen it before, but what padlet offers that was different it mimics a lot of the buttons and the features that the students know from social media. so far example, if somebody puts a really interesting resource on and a number of other people look at it, they can grade it with stars and thumbs up and those sorts of things. and i found one it was engaging them to read it because they wanted to be the judge of somebody else's resources but actually it was fairly meaningful because if it was crap, people would actually say it was crap and it wouldn't get the votes. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 69 and then there is a natural selection process around them being thoughtful about quality of resource. so, it was just so you could see the settings so for me it was practically useful for the students, and actually they enjoyed it and it was fun. but what i am going to come back to is i allow them to play. so, the first two times we used it, they played, and there were all sorts of inappropriate resourcing came up when we were developing it. but they knew this was play time and i have to be honest that it's something that i brought from primary school. age 8 -10 they learn by playing, which makes them feel comfortable with the tech and content. ss: you mentioned good points, and i just want to pick up on one of them and it was the ease-of-use that you mention. quite often when you see a shift in the use of technology, and i am thinking specifically about the shift from text messaging to the messenger app. the messenger apps work the exact same way as the messaging app. there was no learning curve as it just works the same way as a messenger. but it added an extra element so you can upgrade some things like that. with the technology that we used, there was a learning curve not only for the staff to pick up and learn how to use ar. but then the students would come into a new user interface which they weren't familiar with and i think that was really difficult for students to grasp because it didn't work like moodle that they had already used. or it didn't work like the messenger app they had already used. it was something new to learn again and that was a barrier for some of the learners. lf: which again comes back to if we are going to offer a resource that we may think might be interesting and useful, we can't neglect the time that's needed for them to become comfortable. that's what you are saying isn’t it? when apps are familiar, and mechanisms are familiar, the learning time becomes shorter. ss: and we were restricted to using the free app. if we had time money and resources to develop an app, maybe we could make something that works in a way that they are familiar with and use it that way. but obviously in this case we did not. ws: i disagree with that i think actually the ar technology, where it is at the moment is a huge barrier because it's delivered by us and not chosen by them. and i think what david prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 70 was saying earlier, was that students come in to him on a media project saying, “how do i get it to do this, or i have seen this or i have seen that” and actually holding them back from that element. we almost said, “this is what you need to do, these are the hurdles that you need to climb over.” and so, the self-motivation was low and they wouldn't go away and that becomes a real issue. and interestingly i think one of the things that you pointed out was this concept of making things just work. facetime and google have trained the world now to push a button to do this. you know how to download an app and then put in a code and things like that. but i think even if we spend a hundred grand developing an ar app, i think we would probably end up in the same place. and for me one of the real learning is we are taking this new technology but using it in an old way. so, we are using old methodologies, so effectively we’re using it. personally, we are using it as a digital textbook versus something else. part of the shift to technology that we need to be aware of is that we create things in different ways. whether that be instagram stories whether that be how snapchat works, whatever it might be. and i think interestingly the us have adopted this with the 21st century learning skills, where they said there is four elements – collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking. dc: but the collaborative process to that and in that environment involves the aspect of competition between students, in terms of what technology is available. what are the benefits of augmented reality in education? ss: one of the benefits i saw was that because it was new it tended to increase engagement more than maybe some of the other technologies that we were using. with moodle information goes on there and it doesn't get looked at again in as it requires logging on to the site with a password. with the app we are picking up the phone to use it, and they potentially have access to that knowledge quicker and view the information again. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 71 lf: on the same question about analysing and looking at benefits, for me, when i looked at how padlet played out in the classroom i think it actually enhanced the learning experience. so, it took the debating resources to a new level, because they were doing an activity that i didn't prompt them to do. i would love them to evaluate the resources and make a judgement. as those buttons were built-in, they started to do it automatically, so i thought that it took the learning to a new level. the other thing i think it does is it reflects the world and the world of work. padlet may not be the future as it has already moved on to another stage, but becoming familiar with new ways of filming and storing transferring and sharing, that seems to be a benefit if we can build it in. and i think in our case ar was trying to be ahead of the curve i suppose. ws: and it's interesting i think sean mentioned earlier something about the cost of things. padlet has gone to a paid for version now, so a part of the reason why we used it is it was the cost, which in turn has stopped me using it. lf: what happened with my students was that they started to use padlet independently, because they knew it was a tool that they could use which i was really pleased about. and actually, they didn't need to tell me about that, but they did they said i am using it for such and such. but actually, they realised that they get to a point then get charged. so now a number of them has dropped it. dc: i think the idea of using technology is a group experience, rather than using technology as a means to an end. the year one project that i worked on which used padlet, for instance. i just set the structure, asked them to use padlet, include some video content, and create a presentation. normally this would have been on powerpoint, but with padlet the idea was about creating that shared resource and something about that lee has mentioned, that there was a real sense of community for the students. curating various contents, having fun with it, and then feeling proud to share it back are some of the key drivers for tech usage. one of the videos was a review of the key educational prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 72 acts. the students decided to make it interesting by getting their kids to read out the acts. another student dressed up just like the prime minister, arthur balfour. she put on a fake moustache and read through the passing of the act in present tense. it made the project fun and engaging and created a real sense of community with a high level of interest generated around those two padlets. lf: that really pleases me that actually they took it and they owned it and they were creative. and i think that's where learning becomes fun, because when creativity is flowing in a human being their enjoyment around learning. i wanted to add something about the collaborative aspect because often technology can be seen to isolate people, you know, and people just be shut into their own world technologically. but i think something that's coming out for us is that learning involves both things, so many depend on learning where you go away, and you get your head down. and what's great is there are so many different media. we can do youtube and podcast and that's great for different learning styles. but all human beings most 99% love to collaborate they love to be with other people. it's a bit rough and tough and we have our issues about being in groups together, but ultimately, we find it a rich experience to share our ideas and learn ideas from other people. so, if technology can if we can remember that technology can be evaluated, it does empower and enables us to be more collaborative and creative. i think that's something i always try and look for when i am evaluating a tool. ws: and it's interesting because i asked most of my students what they would like to get rid of, the single answer is group work because they hate it. they absolutely hate it. dc: but do they hate group work for the experiences that they have had, rather than what we're proposing? ws: and that's interesting as well because is there a role for us to teach people how to be in groups? because that comes back to four season collaboration and creativity and shared things. lf: i have to come back at you because one of my modules is group work, lead groups and i look at how groups evolve and develop. i think probably all of you have touched on it. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 73 and it's a definite yes, we can't just expect that people know how to operate effectively in a group. we have to teach it, we have to model it, and we have to be explicit in our discussions about the group and its function, as well as what the group is working on content lines. ss: we do a lot of that in work-based learning, because obviously they are going out and getting some experience in the workplace. they need to know how to communicate with one another and how to identify the dominant person in a group, and how to deal with conflict in a group and all of these different issues that you get with group work. how could we use ar in education? ss: i carried out a bit of a research before starting the project. my wife is a social worker and they were looking at ways of getting adopters to understand the adoption process, what the benefits of adoption are and the drawbacks and any issues you might face with the adoption process. one organisation has developed an app which was an interactive app. it was actually virtual reality rather than augmented reality. through the use of a headset or some kind of visual device in front of your face you could experience different scenarios in the adoption process, through the eyes of different people in the room. so, it was through the eyes of the child, through the eyes of the adopters and through the eyes of the social worker. it created different perspectives from different situations that could occur through this virtual reality. for our students, we can actually put them in the environment. so you could think about sports coaches being able to be out in the field while sat in the classroom just by putting a headset on, or construction students being able to be on the building site and experiencing what goes on, at the building site and be able to interact with these things. this is invaluable as you know the time, cost and effort in taking a whole group of 20 or 30 students out on a trip. for a large institution taking 100 students to a building site to experience these things, it's massively impractical. suddenly they have got mobile devices in front of them or tablets in front of them, and they are all viewing the same vision but from different angles and manipulating that situation with their fingers. it could be quite exciting. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 74 ws: it's interesting that you say that because that almost goes back to my point on this concept, that i think the reason why ar wasn't as successful as i thought it would be is because we were using a new technology in an old way. we picked up the new technology and we say how can we use that to do what we are doing now. and almost what you've highlighted there is a different end goal, and the technology is the hurdle to get to that end goal. and this relates to what david was saying, rather than “how can i get them to read a book or can i get them to look at an app.” but we are looking at the same process versus changing the process to be more beneficial to them. lf: i want to watch something about ar because i wasn't a complete ar rejecter. and i want to tell you about a sequence of ideas that happened after we did an open evening downstairs here. one of the groups was using some ar, and they were using it as a headset to engage people to walk around the area where the open evening was taking place. so, the idea was to use the augmented reality system. it was like a dungeons and dragons den, where there were monsters and things you could find like treasures all around the room, but it was a way of getting them moving around the room to different places. it helps the flow actually. but i think i got the thinking that we could use the same principles of ar, where we ask students to go away and look at information and to read it and collate it and try and understand it. we could, if we wanted to, move them around a little bit and have a little bit of fun and engagement. place the information all around the building, and they would have to go and collect it, but they would have to read it to make sense of it to decide whether it was their information or somebody else's information. so, it's low-level but it's a way of getting them moving. i would argue that some of them have found it more engaging than being sat in a jigsaw group going through an information collecting session. ss: and on a larger scale we talked about it in our initial research, the pokémon go phenomenon that took off where people were out in the streets and fighting and collecting pikachu. straight away that got me thinking about how you can use that again in the construction industry. so, you can don a headset and suddenly there are holes in the wall, and you can see the construction of the wall. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 75 ws: interestingly businesses are doing that – organizations in the real world. that's how they train people. what they are doing now is 3d mapping. i was talking to someone the other day and they are creating a new warehouse for something, and the warehouse has been created in ar. so, they can go to the building site and they can walk through the warehouse and see where everything needs to be laid out. dc: i like what sean is saying in terms of social work professionals using vr, you know something similar could be used in education to develop social skills like empathy. i think maybe a lot of students are under pressure in terms of grades, and to develop the understanding the theory of education and how do you construct a lesson plan. and then you are set free into education i think, the idea of working with ar or vr around developing skills and empathy and looking at different situations, and how you deal with different situations it would be quite interesting. ws: racing drivers race the tracks in advance. they spend hours on it, and it's almost like you run your degrees, where our business students can actually have business simulations like the sims. lf: which actually recognises one of our significant factors as human beings that we learn through reputation, and what will is saying about racing drivers they ride those tracks they drive those tracks without having to actually be at the track, for one reason only because they know that the more times they drive it the faster they get and the more they are efficient. so i think there is probably some rooms sculpt for further discussions around how effectively can we bring the work experience in the workplace right here into this building, and allow them to repeat the process of learning to be in a cross classroom, or actually being able to be in a building that was being constructed and actually maybe having. because one of the things that i often wonder is, what would we get if we invested more time in our relationships with our local employees. this might be one of the benefits that they will share some of their ar and vr technologies and storage, which actually allows them to be seeing the very same level of details, or the same depth of experience as they are actually experiencing on the job, which would be a fantastic preparation for the world of work. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 76 would you use ar in the coming academic year for education? lf: no, and the issue is time, because for me to be comfortable about choosing it as a resort i would have to be at a level of comfort with it. and i didn't find it easy or quick to learn with and to get, because i need to feel that sense of confidence about the resource and to be clear about what it can do and how i can build it into the learning. if i don't get to that place, i am also reluctant to engage with it. so realistically it is a no. ss: yes, i would. however, i would need some kind of finished article to be able to use it, and that requires the development time. so, going back to what we were saying about social work project, so if you could put students in a situation and get them to experience it if that technology was readily available to buy off the shelf, yes absolutely, i would use it. dc: probably not. i would want to know that it was going to enhance the experience of what was going to take place in the classroom, rather than just being an alternative for the sake of being an alternative. ws: and i think i agree with all of you that technology is not the answer. it's a method to get there. and based on the money that we have, and the time that we have, and even the objectives that we have, it doesn't really fit with what we are trying to do. but it does lead to the follow-up question are you likely to use tech in your classroom in the next academic year? lf: yes, because the experience of being in the project actually encourage me to change some of my practices as a facilitator of the learning. i realised in a very visceral real way that the engagement level went up, the ease of working doing some of the mundane tasks it was easier for them. so, for me i probably would have started to look more widely at how i might use other approaches and apps to try and get the same effect. in terms of engagement and collaboration, i love david's idea about creativity. he’s got me thinking that maybe we as a group could be more collaborative about our learning the technology as well. it makes me feel more comfortable if we were in a regular, actual learning prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 77 set, where we would sit, and we would create something together. we could go away and have a go at it but come back and i feel the benefit of collaboration and being supported in our learning. it can get me to the point where i can become a confident user of it. and then i am at the stage where i can be much more confident about implementing it in the right place in the learning. ss: well i think we all inadvertently use technology more than we ever have done. i have noticed students over the past two or three years, rather than going on to moodle to download a powerpoint, they are taking a picture of every slide as we go through them in the classroom. so, if we are going through a particular topic, they will take a picture of every slide rather than login to moodle. and it goes back to what we were saying before that what's easier for some students isn't necessarily for others. you have got some students who will just login to moodle and download a whole powerpoint and use it that way. and you have got some students that want to take a picture, we have now got the new boards where they can just scan a qr code and it gives them the notes. so, any notes that we have made on the board or any kind of collaborative work that we done on the board you scan it and you have got it and they got access to it that way. dc: absolutely, but any use of technology needs to consider the types of students and the types of technology avaliable. for instance, taking the practices, techniques and i used in my last job simply wouldn’t fit with the current students i teach. a framework needs to be developed around the use of technology that fits with the needs of your current students. ws: and whilst i echo those thoughts, it's an interesting one. for me in some ways i have almost taken a retro step and gone back to much more paper base and things like that. and that's partly because the feedback from the project was that students like the handouts, it gives them a tangible feeling of safety. prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302209 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302209 62 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 britishness and ‘the outsider within’: tracing manifestations of racist nativism in education policy in england heather smith1 1. school of education, communication and language sciences, newcastle university, newcastle, uk (heather.smith@ncl.ac.uk) received: 02/03/2021 accepted for publication: 09/07/2021 published: 29/07/2021 abstract racist nativism is a concept which helps us understand the relationship between racialisation and nativism. it is used here to examine cultural values perpetuated by media and political discourse as alien to british values in constructions of britishness. this paper will consider with interest racist nativism revealed in the construction of islam and, by association muslims, as (members of) a non-christian religion of non-western tradition; and the speaking and speakers of languages other than english. this provides a contextual frame through which to examine education policy from early 2000s to the present day in order to trace how this racist nativism is manifested within and across policy development in england, thereby attributing significant institutional symbolic value. manifestations of racist nativism are revealed in the quantity, force, focus and tone of the policies, but also, and perhaps most importantly, in deletions and absences, which this paper concludes is suggestive of a statemandated racial epistemology of ignorance (mills, 1997). keywords: racist nativism, britishness, education policy, fundamental british values, multilingualism 1. introduction racist nativism is a concept borne from a need to more accurately portray ‘the ‘inextricable’ link between race and immigration status’ (pérez huber, 2011, p.382). racist nativism reveals not only the racialisation of immigrants in xenophobic hyperbole but also how this racialisation then works to construct false perceptions of people of colour as ‘non-native’ irrespective of their actual immigration status: ‘the outsider within’. in the us, however, from whence this concept first emerged, change may be afoot. the inauguration of a new us president, joe biden, may signal the death knell of trump’s america-first plutopopulism and hence a period less marked by racist nativism. two cases from biden’s first week as president illustrate this possibility: the inclusion of the first ever muslim prayer at the (virtual) inaugural prayer service; and biden’s nominee for education secretary being https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ prism smith (2021) prism 63 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) someone who arrived at school in the us as a boy speaking english as an additional language. these are two important illustrations of change which will be contrasted here with developments in the uk following several years of ‘inflammatory rhetoric and the shameless xenophobia of the leave campaign’ paving the way for ‘a new permission to hate immigrants accompanied by a resurgence of ‘ignorant-and-proudof-it nationalism’’ (grosvenor, 2018, p.150), leading to the uk’s exit from the european union. this paper expands upon an earlier research study in which racist nativist discourses in representations of britishness were revealed in political and media discourse and in student teachers’ understanding of the requirement in the teacher standards not to undermine fundamental british values, further elaborating upon the ways racist nativism appears in articulations of britishness. this will then be used as a frame to examine education policy developments from early 2000s to the present day in order to trace developments in how this racist nativism is manifested within and across policy in england. whilst acknowledging the complex process of interpretation, translation and reconstruction of education policy by teachers and schools (ball, maguire & braun, 2012, p.6), the focus here is on that which michael apple (2019, p. 276) has insisted as crucial: an understanding of ‘the complex connections between education and the relations of dominance and subordination in the larger society’. the focus here is on ‘the preferred meanings’ (apple 2019) contained (or indeed via absences) in policy developments and hence the associated ‘authoritative allocation of values’ (ball, 2012, p.3). it is also concerned with the political and media discourse context into which the policies emerge, in order to illuminate the ways in which education policy is connected to the relations of ‘dominance and subordination’. this analysis also recognises the ways in which policy, whether presented as statutory or guidance, is afforded particular institutionally endorsed symbolic value in enforcement through monitoring and regulation, but also through the sheer weight of presence in ‘mutually reinforcing policy sets’ (ball, maguire & braun, 2012). the lens through which this critical policy analysis is viewed is critical race theory, and the particular concept known as racist nativism and, in this case, as it applies to notions of britishness. 2. critical race theory, racist nativism and britishness critical race theory (crt), with its origins in critical legal studies in the us, works to identify, describe and then dismantle racism (kendi, 2019). although race is a social construction or ‘a way to construct what [physical differences between groups] mean for the purposes of social organisation’ (leonardo & grubb, 2013, p.4), crt understands racism as a normal facet of everyday life; ‘neither aberrant nor rare’ (taylor 2009, p.4). racism can of course be found as overt acts of discrimination, but is also regularly concealed within practices, policies, systems and structures when ‘predicated on the assumptions of racial differentiations, … through which particular groups of people are evaluated negatively, or through which hierarchical ordering of groups of people are established’ (rizvi, 2005, p.170). such institutional racism is also present in an absence of reference to racism, or that which apple has called the absent presence of race in social policy, or in an occlusion of racism (barot & bird, 2001), both of which become noticeable when tracing changes to, for example, policy. racism is therefore also eminently flexible, not only in its elusiveness, but also as ‘embedded in historical moments, geographies, and other markers of difference while still being entrenched in a continuum of white dominance and racial subordination’ (christian, 2019, p.171). also emanating from the immigration history of the us, the concept of nativism developed significantly in early nineteenth century america (hervik, 2015), as ‘intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of its foreign (i.e. un-american) connections’ (higham, 1955, p.4). in 1943 ‘under the impact of nazifascist ideology’, linton and hallowell (1943, p.230) described american nativism as ‘any conscious, organized attempt on the part of society’s members to revive or perpetuate selected aspects of its culture’. in expanding this definition, they drew attention to the conscious, organised element of efforts to perpetuate prism smith (2021) prism 64 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) only selected elements of its culture. they argue that ‘in all nativistic movements [what happens] is that certain current or remembered elements of culture are selected for emphasis and given symbolic value.’ (ibid, p.231, my emphasis). returning to higham’s influential book ‘strangers in the land’ (1955), the concept of racist nativism was developed as one of the three forms of nativism alongside anti-catholicism and anti-radicalism. he described racial nativism as ‘the concept that the united states belongs in some special sense to the anglo saxon ‘race,’’ thereby offering an explanation for the source of its ‘national greatness.’ this is reflected in the way the concept has since developed within crt and latcrit (latinx critical race theory) studies as ‘the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the superiority of the native, who is assumed to be white, over that of the non-native, who is perceived to be people and immigrants of color, and thereby defend the right of whites, or the natives to dominate.’ (pérez huber et al 2008, p.43). racist nativism further helps us to understand the relationship between racism and nativism, useful in applying racist nativism to the uk context, because it recognises the simultaneous racialisation of immigrants (where one’s immigration status is ascribed a place in a racial hierarchy based on assumed biological or cultural differences and evaluated against the presumed superiority of whiteness) and nativist assumptions of race/ethnicity (where non-whites are designated as non-natives). in this relationship, immigrants are constructed as a threat to the existing native state, discourses which simultaneously work to position those who are perceived as non-white, wherever they were born, as non-native, or ‘the outsider within’, and hence also a threat. pérez huber (2011, p.382) defines racist nativist discourse as the institutionalised ways society perceives difference in the assigning of values in order to justify ‘the perceived superiority and dominance of the native (whites)’ to reinforce hegemonic power. as betz (2019) convincingly demonstrates, nativism is useful beyond the north america context in understanding the success of radical right-wing populism in europe. of consideration here, therefore, is the appearance of those components of britishness which are selected for conscious perpetuation through racist nativist discourses, which are visible too in education policy thereby signalling an ‘authoritative allocation of values’ (ball, 2012, p.3) and the attribution therefore of significant symbolic value. in a cyclic turn, these institutionalised values can then be used to justify the truth of those discourses which helped to shape them in the first place. in other words, discourse in policy, as in media and politics, does more than simply reflect normalised meanings, it is constitutive of them and powerfully so. 3. racist nativism in constructions of britishness the task here therefore is to identify those components which construct non-nativeness (whatever the actuality) which are also racialised in political and media discourse constructions of britishness. three components stand out as fundamental to the constitution of britishness in current times, perfectly encapsulated in a speech in 2012 by eric pickles, then secretary of state for communities and local government in the coalition government, when launching the government’s policy ‘creating the conditions for integration’. pickles ‘pledged to ‘end the era of multiculturalism’ and ‘that the english language and christian faith will be restored to the centre of public life’’ (grayson, 2012 online). these categories mirror changes in the us as alluded to at the start of this paper and also reflect previous research into political and social discourses (as below), although no claim is made to this list being fully constitutive: • ‘cultural’ values which are alien to or ‘not quite as good as’ british values. this relates to cultural racism (modood, 1992, in poole, 2002) ‘in which religion and culture (rather than colour or origins) constitute the most significant signifiers of racialization’ (poole, 2002, p. 22). • islam as a non-christian religion of nonwestern tradition. prism smith (2021) prism 65 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) • the speaking and speakers of languages other than english (or, more accurately and more precisely in britain, other than english, welsh, irish, or scottish gaelic; although it is recognised that inside england, the speaking of welsh, irish or scottish gaelic is constructed as ‘other’). a. britishness as shared cultural values situating muslims as ‘outsiders within’ grube (2011, p.630) demonstrates how creation of a values-based notion of ‘britishness’ in the late victorian period marked a move away from internal nation divisions (e.g. between the english and scots) and associated religious affiliations, thereby creating ‘‘outsiders’ within british society against which all british nationalities could define themselves as morally legitimate.’ we are, by now, entirely familiar with an overt association between britishness and cultural values discourse resulting in a ‘stratification of citizenship’ into those who really belong, those who have made an effort to belong, and those who don’t belong (hodkinson, 2020). in the time of the new labour government (1997 to 2010), in a continuance of margaret thatcher’s attack, multiculturalism was viewed as the cause of assumed segregations within a society, identifying a tension between multiculturalism and associated values, and national identity. post the 9/11 and the london 7/7 terrorist atrocities, some communities were situated as responsible for any lack of cohesion (so called ‘self-segregation’) and as a greater threat to national unity: public confidence in the welfare state is being undermined by the presence in britain of immigrants of a different culture. and they have argued that multiculturalism has encouraged muslims to separate themselves and live by their own values, resulting in extremism and, ultimately, the fostering of a mortal home-grown terrorist threat. (kundnani, 2007, p.26). as poole (2002, p.22) argues in her seminal extensive analysis of the representation of british muslims in the british press, ‘muslims have therefore entered the frame as the central racialized other in britain’. there are now several subsequent analyses of muslim media representation (e.g. brown, 2006; de rooij, 2020, malcolm et al, 2010; saeed, 2007), and in a metaanalysis of published studies from 2000-2015, investigating the media’s role in constructing the muslim identity, ahmed and matthes (2017, p.235) found a pattern which has emerged globally ‘of linking muslims and islam with terrorism, violence, and orthodox ideals, [which] highlights the religion as a threat of a resurgent atavism’. as poole (2002, p.186) put it, in order to overcome insecurities which have arisen as a result of increased cultural diversity in britain, media discourse meant to establish a common culture in line with political discourse, effects a perpetuation of ‘the belief that muslims are wholly different’, ‘have difficulties in adapting to the values of british society’ (ibid, 67) and are therefore excluded from constructions of britishness. phoenix (2019) describes how young british muslim women growing up in britain during this period found difficulty in ‘fitting in’ to britishness. citing observations by morey and yaqin (2011), allen (2017, p.2) claims muslims are routinely presented as ‘a very real, ongoing, and at times apocalyptic threat to ‘our’ values, democracies, identities, and way of life’. as healy (2019) wisely concludes, national values are framed to privilege the value systems of the dominant group (in this case nonmuslims) and in that politicisation, values effectively become the ‘servant of the state’. in terms of racist nativist sentiments (sanchez, 1997); accusations (jaret 1999 in lippard, 2011); and discourses (pérez huber, 2011) (see smith, 2016), the muslim other is therefore represented as a danger to national security, a threat to the british way of life and more specifically the values which serve the state’s construction of this way of life, and ultimately therefore a threat to the political order. muslims are constructed within media and political discourse as the outsider, even the enemy within, in this anti-muslim racist nativism emerging through cultural values associated with britishness. b. britishness and languages other than english writing about the canadian context, ramjattan (2019, p.378, my italics) argues that the maintenance of white supremacy through racist nativism ‘is not only seen in such overt practices as the racial profiling of suspected undocumented immigrants …. but also in the prism smith (2021) prism 66 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) dominance of english.’ similarly, shuck (2006, p.259) argues that ‘public discourse surrounding the use of nonstandard varieties of english and non-english languages in the united states …. is racialized’, and that this is underlaid by a language ideology which she refers to as the ‘ideology of nativeness’. so, certainly in the north american context the dominance of the english language is viewed through a lens of both nativism and the racialisation of language speakers and languages spoken. in understanding the racialisation of language speakers and languages within ‘ideologies of national identity’ (piller, 2001 in brookes & wright, 2020) relating to britishness, i shall draw heavily on the corpus-assisted investigation of the representation of non-native english speakers living in britain in the right leaning british press between 2005 and 2017 by brookes and wright (2020). within that time period they note that gordon brown’s warning in 2007 as prime minister, that immigrants must learn english to stay in britain, marked the start of non-native englishspeaking migrants learning english as linked to their ‘being a part of british society’, with this language learning and assimilation framed as being their responsibility (ibid, p.127). they also note the pervasive deficit discourse associated with non-natives through ‘collocates such as can’t, cannot, unable, and so on, [which] help to foreground migrants’ perceived inability to speak english, all the while backgrounding or obscuring details about the languages they do speak.’ (ibid, p.120). their research reveals particular features of racist nativism (although they do not use this term) within language ideologies associated with britishness and the espoused value of learning to speak ‘fluent’ english and of those who make an effort to do so in order to integrate into british society. indeed, they note that by 2015, the responsibility of migrants to learn english had shifted from being ‘the last line of defence against communities breaking down; [to now holding] the solution to repair already broken communities’ (ibid p.128). extrapolating from the findings of their study, racist nativist representation of non-native english language speakers (note that multilingual british citizens are also represented in most of the news articles they consider) are revealed as: 1) a drain on resources in terms of financial pressures on the state, poorer working conditions for native english-speaking learners and teachers 2) a threat to the british way of life and the very existence of the english language within britain the analysis by brookes and wright (2020) revealed that throughout the period they investigated, whenever government reports announced statistics relating to the number of pupils with english as an additional language (eal) in schools in britain, the press would comment on the associated economic costs for schools and hence also taxpayers. they also note that the relationship between the number of pupils and costs was ‘framed in explicitly negative evaluative terms’ (ibid, p.125), thereby causing problems for schools communicated as a burden to schools, teachers and native english-speaking children: schools lacked resources thereby creating a problem for teachers who were struggling to teach said pupils and therefore also for native english-speaking pupils in the same classes. this sentiment is perfectly captured in one press article: ‘the immigration explosion is crippling british schools as staff struggle to teach children who cannot speak english. a shocking 30% of pupils in manchester now speak english as a second language, and that figure rises to two in three in some parts of the city. (star, 2010). (brookes & wright, 2020, p.130). here we can see a conflation of multilingual pupils born in britain with pupils new to english, both groups captured within the educational term ‘pupil with english as an additional language’ (eal). this term, although imperfect (cunningham, 2017), is a statement about a child’s languaging life (or the fact that they live and learn in more than one language) rather than a pejorative term. it is simply therefore not true to say pupils learning english as a second (their term) language cannot speak english. prism smith (2021) prism 67 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) by 2014, brookes and wright (2020, p.125-126) found ‘concerns about school funding seem to be replaced by concerns that children with english as a second or additional language are actually ‘outperforming’ or ‘overtaking’ children who speak english as their first language.’ they notice an associated movement towards pupils with eal constructed as ‘a threat to the native ingroup’. in other words, pupils with eal once positioned as disadvantaged and requiring extra support, placing a burden on the state, were now situated as overly and unfairly advantaged; a nod towards white victimhood in assertions of political correctness gone mad (smith, 2016). brookes and wright (2020, p.136) suggest their findings may show an emergent trend in public and policy discussions on resource distribution ‘on the basis of native language and/or language proficiency, wherein the indigenous british in-group are competing with the migrant out-group’, noting that such ‘divisive, exclusionary and prejudiced media recommendations would appear unambiguously racist were it not for their being disguised as discourse about language’. they relate this to skutnabb-kangas’ (1988) original definition of linguicism, or we may call it ethnolinguistic racism (block, 2018). relatedly, they also found that translation alongside being cast as a financial burden, was also viewed as an obstacle to integration into british society. the analysis by brookes and wright (2020) provides a glimpse into the ways in which speakers of languages other than english and the speaking of those languages within britain are simultaneously racialised and viewed as non-british (even when they are british and multilingual). racist nativist discourses situate languages and speakers of languages other than english as a burden and a threat to the nation, in a state which assumes a monolingual language ideology, with english as the native language. a concern with a decline of english in the uk, is perceived as an existential threat to the core of britishness given that, as shuck (2006, p.260) argues there is a, ‘view of the world’s speech communities as naturally monolingual and monocultural, whereby one language is semiotically associated with one nation’. and of course, geopolitically, the english language is extremely powerful on the global stage. in accompaniment with these discourses and over the time period of the brexit referendum, there are also reports of increased xenophobic and racist attacks as a consequence of people speaking languages other than english in england. for example, rzepnikowska (2019) reports very serious racist attacks on polish people because of the visibility of their speaking of polish in public spaces. a post-brexit report on racist attacks by the institute of race relations found that ‘abuse aimed at eastern/ western/ southern europeans often followed the victim speaking a different language or speaking with an accent’ (komaromi & singh, 2016). the next stage is to examine how the racist nativist discourses revealed here in relation to cultural values, muslims and speakers (and the speaking of) languages other than english in the constant perpetuation of constructions of britishness by politicians and the media, are reflected in education policy emerging into this context, thereby further stamping an ‘authoritative allocation of values’ (ball, 2012, p.3). 4. english education policy: britishness, values and the muslim ‘other’ before going further, it is important to clarify that this section focuses on english education policy only, fully cognisant of the critique that ‘unlike for the welsh or scots, allegiance with england and allegiance with britain tend to be regarded as one and the same thing’ ‘(1997, p.184). in terms of cultural values, the most important policy shift in england relates to the emergence of fundamental british values (hereafter fbv). fbv are defined in education policy as taken directly from the definition of extremism articulated in the revised version of the prevent strategy, which was launched in june 2011 as one arm of the government’s counterterrorism policy contest. within the revised prevent (2015), extremism is defined as ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental british values’. these values include ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’. this is a shift in policy recognised by kundnani prism smith (2021) prism 68 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) and hayes (2018, p.7) in which from 2005 the analysis of extremism moved from ‘references to formal groups and movements … towards an emphasis on attitudes, mindsets, and dispositions’. education policy is now inextricably related to this version of counter terrorism and the prevention of extremism, the underlying cause of which is understood as religious ideology, rather than actual involvement in any extremist group or movement (kundnani & hayes, 2018). as such, what is required is ‘cultural engineering as a key means of countering the purported spread of extreme ideologies’ (ibid, 2018, p.8). table 1 documents those education policies which refer to fbv, as one mechanism of ‘cultural engineering’. they appear in both statutory and ‘guidance’ documentation and, as the table demonstrates, fbv are widespread, repetitive and deeply ingrained across the education policy landscape, accompanied by legal and regulatory powers. table 1. year policy publishing body guidance or statutory reference to fbv 2011 last updated 2013 teachers’ standards dfe statutory ‘teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school, by: not undermining fundamental british values’ (p.14) 2014 promoting fundamental british values as part of smsc in schools: departmental advice for maintained schools dfe guidance ‘through ensuring pupils’ smsc development, schools can also demonstrate they are actively promoting fundamental british values.’ (p.4) january 2015 ofsted school inspection handbook ofsted statutory schools will be found to be inadequate if: ‘there are serious weaknesses in the overall promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development or their physical well-being, so that pupils are intolerant of others and/or reject any of the core values fundamental to life in modern britain.’ (p.39) june 2015 the prevent duty: departmental advice for schools and childcare providers dfe guidance following the uk counterterrorism and security act new 2015 legal duty for teachers and other publicsector ‘to help recipients understand the implications of the prevent duty. the prevent duty is the duty in the counterterrorism and security act 2015 on specified authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.’ (p.3); ‘schools and childcare providers can also build pupils’. prism smith (2021) prism 69 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) table 1 (continued) employees to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental british values’ (p.5) presented as part of safeguarding from september 2015 ofsted school inspection handbook ofsted statutory regulation to be graded as outstanding by ofsted, schools must demonstrate that ‘the promotion of fundamental british values, [is] at the heart of the school’s work.’ (p.42). (nb this document has been withdrawn by dfe.) 2016 educational excellence everywhere – white paper dfe vision paper ‘ensure a knowledge-based curriculum is complemented by the development of the character traits and fundamental british values that will help children succeed’ (p.88). 2018 ofsted’s equality objectives ofsted report ‘in making judgements, inspectors will consider whether those we inspect comply with their relevant duties set out in the equality act 2010 and, where applicable, the extent to which they promote british values and promote equality and diversity’ (p.2). 2019a the education inspection framework ofsted statutory ‘inspectors will make a judgement on prism smith (2021) prism 70 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) table 1 (continued) the personal development of learners by evaluating the extent to which: the provider prepares learners for life in modern britain by: developing their understanding of fundamental british values’ (p.11). 2019 itt core content framework dfe guidance (but enforced through the itt inspection framework) in talking about how the framework sits alongside the teachers’ standards, it makes reference to: ‘how fundamental british values can be upheld in schools and the importance of showing tolerance and respect for the rights of others’ (p.7). 2020 plan your relationships, sex and health curriculum dfe guidance on the use of external agencies in teaching the new statutory pshe and rse curriculum ‘schools should not under any circumstances work with external agencies that take or promote extreme positions’ including for example ‘promoting divisive or victim narratives that are harmful to british society’ and ‘a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism…’ (np). prism smith (2021) prism 71 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) table 1 (continued) 2020 headteachers’ standards dfe non-statutory (replace the national standards of excellence for headteachers 2015) inside and outside of school headteachers are to ‘uphold fundamental british values’ ‘modelling the behaviour of a good citizen’ which is defined in footnote 7 as ‘someone who adheres to fundamental british values.’ (np). 2020 initial teacher education (ite) inspection framework and handbook ofsted statutory regulation providers are rated inadequate if ‘partnership leaders do not ensure that training respects and teaches knowledge and application of fundamental british values and the equality act 2010’ (p.53). if this is ensured, they are graded good. to understand further the connection between this radical intrusion of extremism (defined as opposition to fbv) into education within this ‘mutually reinforcing policy set’, and the racist nativism of the context into which these policies emerged, one must look to evidence their effect, particularly on muslim pupils. hard data from the home office (2019) shows that: in the year ending march 2019, there were a total of 5,738 referrals for 5,531 individuals due to concerns that they were vulnerable to being radicalised. ….. the education sector made the most referrals (33%; 1,887). further, 23% (324/1404) of referrals for concerns relating to islamist radicalisation, were made by the education sector; the 2nd highest rate. the statistics for 2019 also revealed the number of referrals per region, revealing that the north east region had the highest proportion of referrals for the education sector (352 of 1,887; 19%). we are not privy however, as to the nature of those referrals. although the religion of those referred is not usually captured, the npcc reported that in 2015 1,394 of people referred were muslim, compared to 139 christian (ratcliffe, 2016, cited in crawford, 2017). before going further, it is important to acknowledge that from the start, until the 2011 revision of prevent, muslims had been the sole focus for the funding and operationalisation of the legislation surrounding preventing violent extremism (pve) (see for example, thomas, 2010); a legacy which appears to spill over into the impact of prevent today. in their thematic review of empirical studies published between 2015 and 2019 prism early view (2021) smith (2021) prism 72 early view into the impact of prevent in schools and in ite, jerome et al (2019, p.826) found evidence from the studies that despite the fact that the prevent duty no longer identifies islam or muslims as the object of the policy, the duty ‘is being interpreted within dominant discourses connecting terrorism, extremism and islam.’ it would appear that ofsted falls prey to the same perceived connections, perhaps reflecting the ethnic make-up of hmis according to ofsted’s own figures (5.5% of hmi were bame in 2017; 5.6% bame in 2018) (ofsted, 2019). in 2018, in a speech to a church of england schools conference, amanda spielman, ofsted’s chief inspector, publicly backed head teachers who wanted to ban young muslim girls from wearing the hijab. mirroring the discourses identified earlier in this paper, one sentence of her speech seamlessly connected the muslim faith with the narrowing of young people’s horizons, their isolation and segregation, to the indoctrination of extremist ideology. this followed a recommendation by spielman to ofsted inspectors the year before to question muslim primary school girls during inspections if they are wearing a hijab or similar headscarf, which she linked to the sexualisation of young muslim girls. it is therefore utterly astonishing and ironic how in a more recent speech in december 2020 on the conservative’s new approach to fairness, liz truss (in her role as minister for women and equalities) said we should move beyond the fashionable focus on racism and sexism and protected characteristics (as in the equality duty), claiming that ‘in britain you will have the opportunity to succeed at whatever you wish to do professionally… dress however you want to dress’ (unless you are a muslim girl, that is). it is surely unsurprising then that jerome et al’s (2019) review revealed that muslim pupils feel the impact of the prevent duty more than other groups, reporting feelings of stigmatisation and of being perceived as a threat or suspect, mirroring the political and media racist nativist discourses identified earlier. the duty of teachers to monitor active opposition to fbv therefore place muslim students in particular, in a precarious position in involvement in any critical discussions of identity, belonging and beliefs (crawford, 2017; kundnani & hayes, 2018). a further recent and related intervention by kemi badenoch, parliamentary under-secretary of state (minister for equalities), in a debate in parliament about black history month on 20th october 2020, proposed a new values-infused frame for deciding what should and must not be taught in schools. it is worth quoting this part of her speech at length: what we are against is the teaching of contested political ideas as if they are accepted facts. we do not do that with communism, socialism or capitalism. i want to speak about a dangerous trend in race relations that has come far too close to home in my life, which is the promotion of critical race theory, an ideology that sees my blackness as victimhood and their whiteness as oppression. i want to be absolutely clear that the government stand unequivocally against critical race theory (hansard, 2020). in conflating social theory, which can be tested (and hence scientifically contested), with ideology, which is positioned in her speech against neutrality (as if claimed neutrality itself is not a political stance), the government are able to denounce critical race theory’s (and black lives matter) inclusion in school curricula and resources as not adhering to the statutory duty to be ‘politically impartial’. as a critical theory, crt would not contest the need for political impartiality, rather it would raise for scrutiny what is meant by impartiality within a political frame. this announcement in parliament came one month after the dfe’s published guidance on teaching the new pshse (and rse) curriculum, in which schools are told categorically not to involve any external agencies construed as extreme, an example of which is defined as ‘promoting divisive or victim narratives that are harmful to british society’. in short therefore, any external agency who works to support schools in understanding racism and antiracism through the lens of crt are now viewed as extremist and working against fbv. one could therefore view this recent government move as also symptomatic of the ‘cultural engineering’ to which kundnani and hayes (2018) refer as a mechanism of countering extremism in the government’s war against particular prism early view (2021) smith (2021) prism 73 early view ideologies. as a theory and hence an analytic tool which works to identify and describe in order to dismantle racism, interventions such as this by the government (and the anti-woke movement in general (see doxtdator, 2019)) to frame crt as extremist and illegal, means the dismantling of racist nativism against muslims, exacerbated by fbv-related policies, appear far less attainable. indeed, the policy developments in relation to fbv considered here provide an institutional stamp of approval for the assumptions within racist nativist discourses about muslims, thereby reinforcing assumed white native superiority. as crawford (2017, p.204) concludes in her examination of fbv in schools, ‘the british government’s racially biased prescription of ‘fundamental british values’ to treat the supposed value deficit between the (white british) native over that of the non-native (muslim other) does little but defend white native superiority and reproduce and reinforce white hegemony.’ the attempt to remove crt as a conceptual tool for anti-racism is also reflective, however, of already existing absences with the above policies. 5. a brief additional note on absences at this moment in time, we face a global pandemic. a report from public health england (2020) revealed an increased risk of death for those from black, asian minority ethnic communities, concluding in a section entitled, ‘racism, discrimination, stigma, fear and trust’, that racism is a factor in the unequal deaths from covid19. the prime minister boris johnson’s response to this report and to black lives matter, was to announce the creation of a new ‘race inequality commission’ with the remit of considering wider inequalities including ‘working class white boys in schools’. this commission is to be led by tony sewell, who has previously commented that much of the evidence about institutional racism is flimsy and that black underachievement is due to the low expectations of school leaders who position black boys as victims (sewell, 2010). in his letter in december 2020 to the minister for equalities, sewell reported that, ‘the evidence is showing that many of the disparities are driven by differences in age, sex, class and geography. as a consequence, the reasons for the disparity may in fact have little to do with racism itself’ (sewell, 2020). this de-racialisation of education (barot & bird, 2001; gillborn et al, 2016; troyna & williams, 1986, smith, forthcoming) in the removal of a concern about racism is far from politically impartial, but of course, it is more difficult to critique that which is not present, which is precisely why we need crt. absences in social policy also betray and authorise symbolic value regarding what is and is not important. the lack of attention to racism in initial teacher education (ite) policy for example, tells student teachers that understanding racism is not as important as learning about say, behaviour management, even in cases when understanding an individual’s behaviour requires an understanding of racism in all of its forms. this chosen example from ite policy is not arbitrary for it reflects the reality of ite policy at present. the ite core content framework was published late 2019 as a ‘minimum entitlement’ for those training to become teachers in england and hence communicates the most essential aspects of this training. a quick search reveals that there is no single reference to race, racism, discrimination, prejudice, or indeed, english as an additional language, bilingual, or multilingual. this lies in stark contrast to the 35 references to behave/behaviour, 25 references to expect/expectation and 22 references to memory. although this framework is not a statutory curriculum it is effectively enforced given ofsted’s new inspection framework for itt states under ‘risk assessment’, that inspectors will: ‘check whether the partnership ensures that trainees within a primary or secondary phase receive their minimum entitlement, which is set out in the department for education’s (dfe) itt core content framework.’ by communicating that which is construed by ofsted as the essential minimum entitlement, the absence of reference to racism also suggests it is somehow peripheral or additional to the knowledge required by the profession. as i have argued previously, ‘suggestions of curriculum additionality can more easily morph into perceptions of unfair positive/reverse discrimination wherein understandings of advantaging and disadvantaging are reversed’ (smith, 2013, p.439). this is precisely the language used by liz truss in the aforementioned speech, when she said of her own prism early view (2021) smith (2021) prism 74 early view school experience, ‘while we were taught about racism and sexism, there was too little time spent making sure everyone could read and write.’ one presumes liz truss is speaking here about reading and writing in english which takes us neatly into an exploration of the manifestations of britishness as constructed against multilingualism in education policy. the notion of absences, or at least a greatly reduced emphasis, is also present when considering the education of multilingual pupils in england. 6. english education policy: britishness and languages other than english in terms of policy developments relating to multilingualism and pupils with eal, flynn and curdtchristiansen (2018) have traced and analysed policies relating to the national curriculum (nc) and related practice guides pre-2010 (including national strategies work) and post-2010, to document changes in quantity and discourse. in terms of quantity, they reveal 9 policy and practice documents from 1999 to 2010 and only 3 documents post 2010, hence revealing a huge disparity in ‘the amount of text devoted to language policy for eal pupils and in the explicit guidance for teachers and schools with regard to assessment and curriculum planning’ (ibid, p.410). leung et al (2021, p.7) too note the lack of a single policy initiative in england to ‘introduce a large-scale system-wide formal testing framework for eal’. in the post-2010 national curriculum (nc), for example, 8 pages of text focussed on ‘how to make their classroom inclusive and specifically eal-oriented’ (flynn & curdt-christiansen 2018, p.418); in comparison there are 2 bullet points consisting of 4 sentences in the 2013 nc, which is still in operation today (with some unrelated adjustments in 2015). however, it is the more fine-grained linguistic analysis which is of particular interest to this paper. firstly, in the nc documents, they note a shift from discourses of support and acknowledgment of pupils’ multilingualism to the use of modal verbs signalling obligation, without practical advice on how to do that which is seen as an obligation. for example, the post2010 nc in 4.6 reads ‘teachers should plan teaching opportunities to help pupils develop their english and should aim to provide the support pupils need to take part in all subjects’ (dfe, 213). this makes clear the priority is the development of english alone; no mention is made of pupils’ other languages or their role in pupils’ learning of english and other subject areas, nor of the benefits of multilingualism. this is replicated in the nc documents’ use of the term ‘language’, which post-2010 were all related to ‘a monolingual, subjectrelated context that does not acknowledge a multilingual classroom’ (ibid, p. 419). of particular importance here, flynn and curdt-christiansen (2018, p.419) reveal a document by dfe published in 2011 which states: pupils learning english as an additional language (eal) share many common characteristics with pupils whose first language is english. however, their learning experience differs because they are learning in and through another language, and because they may come from cultural backgrounds and communities that have different understandings and expectations of education, language and learning. (dfe, 2011, my italics) although flynn and curdt-christiansen do not draw on the concept of racist nativism, this one statement (which is part of only 4 pages, in comparison to around 50 pages pre-2010 on how to plan for pupils with eal), reveals reflections, if not manifestations, of the racist nativism identified earlier for the speaking of and the speakers of languages other than english in england. here, pupils with eal are cast in deficit terms as emanating from cultural backgrounds/communities with different expectations. different to what or whom, one might reasonably ask. the context of the sentences of course, leads one to assume the contrast is with monolingual british pupils. use of the term ‘expectations’ implies a variance in values between those pupils from some cultural backgrounds who are multilingual, and pupils who are british monolingual native english speakers. this picture is further complicated when one considers that all languages lie within a hierarchy which emerges locally according to the history of migration and the economic context, and which is set within the global geopolitical landscape. consequently, the ‘home’ languages of pupils with eal are not equally valued and this too intersects with the prism early view (2021) smith (2021) prism 75 early view racialisation of language speakers, meaning that some bilingualisms are more highly prized than others and are therefore, alongside non-white multilingual speakers, more likely to be framed as in greater alignment with values in constructions of britishness. take, for example, three pupils with eal all of whom have a european ‘home’ language; in light of the above dfe document, a white french-speaking pupil is more likely to be constructed as having a ‘cultural background’ less at variance with britishness, than, for example, a romanian speaking roma pupil, or a portuguese speaking pupil from angola. returning to table 1, policies of relevance beyond documents analysed by flynn and curdt-christiansen (2018) include: • the itt core content framework, which, as in the previous analysis contains no reference at all to eal, bi/multilingual(ism), thereby marking this as less significant to practice despite the fact that dfe figures show that 21.3% of primary age pupils and 17.1% of secondary age pupils have, according to school census data, eal. • the teachers’ standards, with one reference to eal in a list which includes pupils with special educational needs, those of high ability and those with disabilities. • the inspection frameworks. • the newly implemented phonics screening check (the only policy not included in table 1). remarkably, there is no reference to pupils with eal in the schools’ inspection framework and only minimal reference in the current itt inspection framework, wherein all 4 references to pupils with eal appear in a list alongside ‘pupils who have send’, mirroring the teachers’ standards. the phonics screening check (psc) was implemented in 2012 for all pupils in year 1 of primary school. children are asked to decode a list of 40 words, 20 of which are pseudo words. as carter (2020, p.605) reports, teachers described ‘the difficulty of explaining to the child with eal that some words they were being asked to read did not have a meaning while, at the same time, encouraging the child to ask about meaning and extend their english vocabulary’. as pierlejewski (2020, p.263) argues, ‘eal children are particularly disadvantaged by the current system. their communication is not measured and therefore has no value, as only communication in english counts.’ in other words, for pupils with eal, absences are not only present in policy development, but also in enforced and regulated practices such as the psc. in summary, the policies reveal an overwhelming focus on the learning of english with the only acknowledgement of pupils’ multilingualism phrased as a deficit (alongside other groups of pupils such as those with send), as something to recover from (cunningham, 2017) and as something at variance with the values associated with monolingual native english speaking. the celebration of multilingualism as an individual or community asset, or an understanding of the role of pupils’ home languages in their learning of subjects in school, including english, is entirely absent in current policy. the cumulative tone of this policy development, together with the removal of an interest in multilingualism signals an assimilationist agenda reflective of the racist nativist discourses which position the speaking and speakers of languages other than english as an existential threat to the british way of life. 7. final thoughts education policy is revealed here as reflecting the racist nativism argued to be prevalent in political and media discourse, thereby ascribing authoritative symbolic value to selected elements of culture favoured in notions of britishness. cultural values perceived as incompatible with these favoured, reiterated and, through policy, reinforced elements of british values are constructed as exclusive of or in opposition to britishness: the values associated with being a muslim in opposition to british non-muslims; and the values of being multilingual in opposition to a monolingual native english speaker, or, as a minimum, a fluent native-like english speaker. these supposed oppositional values are of course not overtly named in any education policy document; although recent government moves to name crt and blm comes startingly close. but prism early view (2021) smith (2021) prism 76 early view nonetheless, their perceived oppositional nature is reinforced by the sheer weight of policies relating to fbv, their impact on muslim pupils, and the overwhelming incursion of a securitisation agenda in education policy, supported by england’s powerful regulatory body, ofsted. we can see this reinforcement too in government moves to withdraw educational theory as an emancipatory tool to dismantle the racist practices exacerbated by fbv. we can see reflections, or at least ghostly apparitions of these ‘oppositional’ values in the reduced attention to multilingualism and the denial of opportunities for multilingual learning and assessment which benefits all pupils, but particularly those with eal. we see them, therefore, in the assimilationist tendencies of a monolingual language ideology. crucially, however, we also see them in particular absences in the general trend towards a deracialisation of education, thereby attributing symbolic value to both that which is present and to the absence of that which is absent; a sort of state-mandated epistemology of ignorance (mills, 1997). as mills (2007, p. 18) explains, ‘what people of color quickly come to see—in a sense, the primary epistemic principle of the racialized social epistemology of which they are the object—is that they are not seen at all’ (mills, 2007, p.18), thereby self-insulating the ‘white delusion of racial [and native] superiority … against refutation’ (ibid, p.19). perhaps then, our future focus should be on examining what is communicated to teachers in policy absences and how such absences impact on racist nativist epistemologies of ignorance in constructions of britishness. 8. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 10. references ahmed, s. & matthes, j. 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(1986). racism, education and the state. london: routledge. prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 87 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 an (un)usual teaching team chrissi nerantzi,1 and haleh moravej2 1 university teaching academy, manchester metropolitan university, uk (c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk) 2 nutritional sciences, manchester metropolitan university, uk (h.moravej@mmu.ac.uk) received: 03/02/2020 accepted for publication: 07/05/2020 published: 22/10/2020 abstract in this article we (moravej ‘the nutrition lecturer’ and nerantzi ‘the academic developer’) outline our experience of working on a team-taught module. both had worked together on an undergraduate module the nutrition lecturer teaches and had undertaken some research together using playful approaches to module evaluations. when the nutrition lecturer invited the academic developer to co-develop and team teach the postgraduate module nutrition in practice she could not resist. team-teaching in this case was a choice. a choice to collaborate and experiment together with creative approaches to learning and teaching and further develop practice through this process (minett-smith & davis, 2019). academic developers work, most of the time, directly with academic staff. they are usually a layer removed from the students. this article reports a situation for both the ‘lecturer’ and the ‘developer’ when the situation was changed. what follows are reflections by the nutrition lecturer and the academic developer about their team-teaching experience. keywords: team-teaching, professional development, creativity, nutritional sciences 1. introduction in this article, we (moravej ‘the nutrition lecturer’ and nerantzi ‘the academic developer’) outline our experience of working on a team-taught module and our reflections on this experience using our authentic voices. the nutrition lecturer invited the academic developer to co-develop and team teach the postgraduate module nutrition in practice, part of the msc in human nutrition at the same institution. the academic developer is located in a central learning and teaching unit that supports colleagues across the institution in their professional development, curriculum design activities and supports scholarship in this area. the nutrition lecturer splits her works between one of the faculties and in professional services. team teaching in this case was a choice and seen as an opportunity to experiment with creative approaches to stimulate learning through this alternative professional development intervention (minett-smith & davis, 2019). both had worked together before on team teaching on the pgcert in learning and teaching in higher education at the same institution. https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk mailto:h.moravej@mmu.ac.uk https://jpaap.napier.ac.uk/index.php/jpaap/article/view/141 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7145-1800 prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 88 3(1) 2. moravej’s ‘take’ on the experience of working with the developer for our nutrition in practice (nip) module, nerantzi was like an architect guiding me in what materials i could use and what would make the metaphorical roof and the flooring of the module stronger. i was the builder making sure the bricks and the windows and the theory were incorporated everywhere but not as a boring piece of information or death by powerpoint. we wanted students to feel empowered, ask questions and i wanted them to see us as partners and facilitators in their professional and personal development. i wanted students to learn about high-quality trusted collaboration, which they will have to be part of when they graduate. i was really excited about our first session together but unfortunately nerantzi was ill and unable to join us. we had discussed what we were going to do together so i was confident on what had to be done in our first session, which was building a community and breaking the barriers. we were going to explore the multicultural dimensions of the group and learn about each other. the multicultural dimension was extremely important as we wanted to harness what students brought, maximise on their diversity and experiences to create a cross-cultural and inclusive student experiences. we wanted each student to feel they belonged to our unique nip community. when students feel they belong, and they are valued for who they are and what they bring to the class their learning, self-esteem and motivation is enhanced. i was slightly concerned that students would know everything about each other as nip was their last module of the year. i was wrong as students loved sharing their personal information and which countries they were from by marking them on the map of the world i had provided for them. they really wanted to learn about each other. i wanted to make sure students were aware that nerantzi was fully part of our community even when she was not physically in the room so i became the messenger between student population and nerantzi. i updated her after each session about what we had done and the feedback from students. i went into the module knowing that this was the first time i was team teaching and i was not alone making all the decisions. as a creative individual, i am particularly resistant to receiving ideas from others especially when they disrupt my ways of doing things. i am open to giving ideas but prefer to experiment alone as i am interested in putting my “unique stamp” and express my own way of doing things, especially if it is the first time running a unit. i trusted nerantzi and her ideas as she was respectful of mine. it was always about enhancement of the unit and student engagement and experience. i never felt my ideas were ignored and diminished and this is why i never felt i had to defend or fight for my ideas as i usually do with others and previous units. this was refreshing and created a natural harmony. nerantzi listened carefully to everything and offered more ideas on what we were going to do. we did not agree on everything and sometimes we changed what we had planned for the classroom but we always respected each other’s ideas and views. nerantzi joined us for the third session and talked about professional identity, social eating, the power of storytelling and adding new dimensions to the module. with nerantzi in the classroom, i could watch her and the students and how they interacted. this is usually not possible beyond basic observation as a solo lecturer in charge of delivery of content and answering questions. by observing, i could see more on how to engage certain students that maybe were less talkative and reinforce certain concepts after nerantzi’s delivery. i have never used storytelling in my teaching so i was open to idea when nerantzi shared a short personal story that she had written about her father in hospital. by the end of it, everyone in the class was emotional. she brought emotional intelligence to the class and made students realise that nutrition in isolation without considering the social setting, people’s emotions and feelings they will be less effective as nutrition experts. i was also less worried about my workload of the module as i knew i could rely on nerantzi. i became more productive than my usual self and became open to more collaborative ideas. in one of our lab sessions, prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 89 3(1) nerantzi suggested i get video feedback from students about their cooking experience using my mobile phone to add a digital dimension, and then to share it on twitter for students to continue learning from each other beyond the lab session. the students loved this and i was very surprised at how much more they were talking when they realised they were being filmed. this continued for every practical session. we now have a video collection that could be used by the students as evidence of their efforts while they were learning about nip in different settings such as schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons. the team teaching allowed ongoing reflection of what worked and what didn’t. we reflected in the sessions and based on what the students needed we changed direction or moved our ideas. just before a session, sometimes, nerantzi or i would come up with a great idea to enhance our teaching or add another layer of thinking for students to keep the unit relevant and real. working with nerantzi boosted my morale and enthusiasm for teaching a new community of learners. everything from mid-module evaluation using lego® serious play® to the planting of chilli plants in pots in the class to using storytelling in different nutritional settings using personal experiences of nerantzi enhanced our understanding. students benefitted from this partnership as they could see how exceptional partnership could work in real life. it broke the boredom of just having one lecturer for the whole module as well. team teaching gave our students access to two visions, two teaching methods, two brains, two different cultures and distinct personalities. i also learnt a lot more from nerantzi on how she moves around the classroom and how she uses various objects to drive the community of learners to think differently. and on how she sometimes puts students on the spot with her questions to push them out of their comfort zone. i had to adopt my teaching to accommodate nerantzi in my classroom. my classroom became ‘ours’ and my students became ‘ours’. we became one community with shared values and goals. students felt a sense of belonging and motivation to take part in all the discussions, to cook and showcase their learning and individual talents. as a result of this collaborative experience, i feel that i have grown as an academic. i realise it was wonderful to work with someone who wanted to listen to my initial vision for the unit but also wanted to take it to the next level. there were so many extra layers of creativity, authenticity and “humanness” to nip, which offered students a holistic and fulfilling experience. it also provided me with personal enrichment and a deeper appreciation for what academic developers can do to enhance and improve teaching of academic colleagues in a trusting and thriving environment. 3. nerantzi’s ‘take’ on working on a student module alongside a regular academic moravej and i met a few months after i joined manmet over five years ago. our shared passion for creative experimentation in learning and teaching brought us together. team teaching can happen in different ways: among academic colleagues from similar or different disciplines but also academic colleagues and support staff. white, henley and brabston’s (1998) team teaching models (interactive, participant-observer and parallel/sequential model) are useful when reflecting on what we did, how and why. our approach was a mixture of these models and created learning opportunities for students that were varied and exposed them to different perspectives, but the message was a common one. research shows that team teaching is generally well received and seen as beneficial by students but can also cause confusion and disorientation, especially if there is no agreement or there are conflicting voices or power struggles (minettsmith & davis, 2019). in our case, we feel that it worked as our approach was collegial and collaborative and also provided valuable opportunities for shared reflection and evaluation of practice. stefani (2003) illustrated the positive impact of academic development on academics when collaboration and partnership models are used and we have experienced this in practice. i treasure the opportunities to teach students you are not academic colleagues. often, i create these opportunities and i think academic developers should do this as part of their professional role. being a lecturer/teacher whilst an academic developer is important too. i used to teach german in my last prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 90 3(1) institution and found it always useful in my discussions with colleagues to share my stories about my undergraduate students. it does make a difference. my experience showed that it helps develops trust. however, i have not come across many universities where this is actively promoted or built into the academic development role. with moravej, we planned the module for some months in advance and our meetings were always full of ideas and excitement. so what does an academic developer do in a class when she knows nothing about the subject beyond liking good food, healthy eating and cooking? well, with moravej we discussed not so much the what was going to be taught in this module but more the how and why. yanamandram and noble (2005), in their team-teaching study in a large undergraduate class, found that the most important factor in team teaching is the quality of teaching itself and much less the subject knowledge. this boosted my confidence that this could work. in a way we really moved away from content delivery to bringing the curriculum alive through stimulating, varied and hands-on experiences to help the students think and enable them to discover their own areas within nutrition and to develop as professionals. this happened through a wide range of approaches we employed that transformed learning into a full body, heart and mind experience. collectively, we listened, discussed, we made, we played, we cried and we questioned. we all learnt. emotions are so important in learning. often we ignore them, we brush them under the carpet. but when we work with people it is really important to remember we all have an emotional dimension too. and this emotional connection can be made strongly through stories. moon (2010) states: a good story seems to facilitate listeners and the teller in moving around in the psychological space of the story, guided by the unfolding actions of the story. for the listener to allow herself vicariously to experience the ‘story world’ involves her in ‘suspending her disbelief’ and thereby suspending some current connections with the here and now. she allows herself to be transported ‘aboard’ the story and may encounter different reality (p.60). the story i shared, i felt enabled this. i enjoy creative writing, story-making and storytelling and often use it in my work as an academic developer. while the story was based on a personal experience, the reaction it generated and the emotional involvement it triggered showed that it was a powerful strategy. i suspect we will all remember the story and connect it with something very specific we learnt. the use of a social media, process and product portfolio, owned by the students, was invaluable and put the students in charge of their learning and development (scully, o’leary & brown, 2018). we normalised the use of technologies in and outside the classroom and created opportunities to help students develop as professionals using digital tools, platforms and spaces. i was impressed with the professionalism of the students and how responsibly they have embraced digital technologies for their learning. students used an individual online portfolio, seamlessly capturing classroom activities and assessment, and sharing and showcasing their work more widely in order to establish a professional space and online presence in readiness for a career in nutrition science. doing the mid-module evaluation with the students was insightful. we used a variation of the lego® serious play® method to gain insights into the individual and collective experience in class using a playful and hands-on learning approach that enabled deeper reflection. we combined our strategy with further learning and teaching approaches and materials as we felt that it would further strengthen sharing and dialogic engagement (james & nerantzi, 2018). students were invited to construct two mini-models, one representing what they were taking away from the module to date and one for what they would find useful to change/happen in the module before the end. we asked our students to add a caption for each model on a post-it and then sticker voting took place when the models were shared. in this way, everything that was shared was transparent, and we could react and respond and also clarify and better understand what was said and what could be done to resolve it. it was fantastic to hear how well the module was perceived and importantly that the students felt they had learnt new things and found the practical sessions useful for http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/teaching/lego_sp.php http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/teaching/lego_sp.php prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 91 3(1) their development. we evaluated this creative approach and wrote an article about it with two students (nerantzi, moravej, silva, & iosifidou, in print). 4. lessons learnt & implications for practice team teaching between academic and academic developer is something that is valuable for both sides. it develops working relationships and a mutual understanding of each other’s role. it is a valuable opportunity for the academic developer to teach students who are not members of staff and for the academic to work critically and creatively with a colleague on the design, implementation and evaluation of their teaching. team teaching with an academic developer is exciting for a lecturer because the lecturer can witness different teaching theories in action live and with a group of students linked to an individual specialist discipline. academics are open to change and transformation as they care deeply about their students. they put a lot of energy into creating stimulating learning experiences. this really drives what they do. they value the opportunity to work with somebody they trust when seen as an equal to consider alternative approaches that have the potential benefit to students. as a lecturer, trust is the most important quality when it comes to trying new learning experiences. the academic developer can step in and enhance the teaching quality throughout the classroom teaching or beyond lecturing during reflection. there is no competition between academic developer and lecturer, only collaborative experiences. we need to trust our colleagues and we need to trust our students. creating a sense of community is what makes a real difference and develops trust within. the academic plays a key role in laying the foundations for such a community to emerge and establish. there is no limit to learning and team-teaching gives lecturers an opportunity to learn and grow themselves using the mentorship of the academic developers. lecturers can enhance their teaching skills, work up to their fullest potential and along with that their creativity, motivation and team management skills get a boost too as there is someone working with them who wants them to improve and grow in a trusted environment. empowering students to pursue their own special interests that are linked to a module and programme of study that builds in choice increases their engagement and commitment to their own development. creating a sense of openness to ask questions and bringing students own individual and diverse and multicultural experiences to the module promoted a sense of richness and inclusion that students and staff were all learning from each other in every session. there was no fear of being judged by students and learning was enhanced, perhaps even transformed. diversity boosts collaboration. we saw this in action. students were curious about each other and keen to learn with and from each other. sharing diverse experiences with each other helped them connect their reality with others and build a wider understanding of differences, culturally, politically, economically and socially. diversity promoted student growth and reflection. when students learnt about other perspectives, and experiences, they tended to reflect on and respond to that information in a positive fashion. it also enhanced a sense of empathy and cultural awareness that i (nerantzi) had not observed in other modules diversity discussions allowed students to feel unique, yet part of a group. diversity within the student community was explored, discussed, and celebrated right from the first session. every student is unique and an individual. but students often feel grouped at university. students explored their individual diversity, from their ethnicity all the way prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 92 3(1) down to their immediate family by sharing stories linked to nutrition. team teaching was an alternative to professional development for both authors through which their relationship was strengthened and new insights into practices were gained. the experience made them think about observation of teaching and how team-teaching could provide an alternative to such developmental activities. how can such mutual professional development collaborations be encouraged? we both found the collaboration to be a valuable practice-based development opportunity that broke free from workshops and organised activities, one that offered on-the-job and just-in-time development with direct application for all those involved. there are of course resource implications to further spread such developmental collaborations but we wonder if there are specific cases where such an investment could potentially transform learning and teaching and reinvigorate practitioners. could such activities be cascaded and have a ripple effect? prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 93 3(1) 5. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 6. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 7. to cite this article: nerantzi, c. & moravej, h. (2020). an (un)usual teaching team. prism, 3(1), 87-94 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301207 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism nerantzi and moravej (2020) prism 94 3(1) 8. references james, a. & nerantzi, c. (2018) guest editors: a potpourri of innovative applications of lego® in learning, teaching and development, in: international journal of management and applied research, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 153-156. https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.54.18-011 minett-smith, c. and davis, c. l. (2019) widening the discourse on team-teaching in higher education. teaching in higher education, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1577814 moon, j. (2010) using story in higher education and professional development, london: routledge. nerantzi, c. moravej, h., silva, l. n. and iosifidou, i. (in print) not another survey! mid-module evaluation using play... and lego®, seda publication on evaluating teaching scully, d., o’leary, m. and brown, m. (2018) the learning portfolio in higher education: a game of snakes and ladders. dublin: dublin city university, centre for assessment research, policy & practice in education (carpe) and national institute for digital learning (nidl), available at https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/carpe/eport folio_report.pdf stefani, l. (2003) what is staff and educational development? in: kahn, p. & baume, d., eds., 2003. a guide to staff & educational development. oxon: routledge, pp. 9-23. white, c., henley, j. and brabston, m. (1998) to team teach or not to team teach – that is the question: a faculty perspective. marketing education review, 8, pp. 13-23. yanamandram, v. and noble, g. (2005) team teaching: student reflections of its strengths and weaknesses. university of wollongong research online. 1 (1), pp. 1-10. https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol3/iss1/6/ https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.54.18-011 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1577814 https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/carpe/eportfolio_report.pdf https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/carpe/eportfolio_report.pdf https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol3/iss1/6/ prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302206 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302206 91 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 an anti-racist reading of the notion of ‘fundamental british values’ ümit yıldız manchester institute of education, the university of manchester, manchester, uk (umit.yildiz@manchester.ac.uk) received: 04/02/2021 accepted for publication: 01/06/2021 published: 25/06/2021 abstract the 2020 black lives matter protests were a reminder that structural racism (sivanandan, 2008) remains prevalent at every level within british society. the movement to decolonise the curriculum has gained momentum amongst educators and students, in recognition that the education system is one of the means by which racism is reproduced. the compulsory promotion of the notion of ‘fundamental british values (fbvs)’ is a mechanism within this production line. ‘fbvs’ play a dual role, firstly as a tool to identify the signs of ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’ amongst young, predominantly muslim people. secondly, it acts as an assimilationist, racist educational policy which promotes the superiority of ‘british values’ over covertly identified ‘other’ values. this paper argues that opposing the promotion of ‘fbvs’ is an integral part of decolonising the curriculum and anti-racist schooling. keywords: fundamental british values, prevent, anti-racism, decolonising the curriculum 1. introduction on 13th november 2020, whilst aimlessly flicking between tv channels on a cold, rainy yorkshire evening, i stopped at bbc2 and began to watch a literary review programme ‘between the covers’ (bbc, 2021). i usually pay little attention to tv’s literary critics, they are usually middle class and white. however, this looked different: i had to pinch myself. was this real or not? i felt both shock and enjoyment. what sparked these emotions was that three of the four guests were black and asian. the books they were discussing were linked to the experiences of black and asian people in post-colonial and post-brexit britain. even the white guest’s book choice was ‘twelve angry men’. this was not an accident. it was the influence of black lives matter (blm) in our society playing out on the bbc. the bbc could not ignore the global anti-racist mood. of course, this does not mean that the bbc has suddenly become an anti-racist broadcasting agency but this tv viewing was a breath of fresh air. this would not have been possible without the contemporary grassroots blm protests, the whole spring and summer of 2020 was a period of heightened anti-racist struggle. following the murder of george floyd in minneapolis by a police officer, mass anti-racist demonstrations spread from the streets of the usa to britain. the blm demonstrations originally emerged as a response to the police murder of a young black man, michael brown, in the summer of 2014 in the usa (taylor, 2016). the blm protests in 2020 were an international uprising against racism. the removal of the statue of slave trader, edward colston, in bristol by blm protesters was a reminder to the https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302206 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302206 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8619-9297 prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 92 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) british public that the roots of racism on both sides of the atlantic are in the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. this global anti-racist struggle has boosted the existing movement to decolonise education (bhambra et al., 2018) in the uk. many universities condemned the murder of george floyd and declared support for the blm movement. some universities were already acknowledging their gains from the slave trade, for example glasgow university decided to pay £20 million in reparation for its yields from slavery and all souls college, oxford paid £100,000 to a college in barbados1. the decolonising task is of course more complex than removing statues as the remnants of colonialist views are so entrenched within the education system that they can seem innocuous. the promotion of the notion of ‘fundamental british values’ (fbvs), which entered the educational sphere in 2012 (lander, 2016) is an example of this. i will argue that challenging, and ultimately removing, the promotion of the notion of ‘fbvs’ from the curriculum is a part of this ongoing anti-racist, decolonising education movement. 2. a brief history of ‘fundamental british values’ the notion of ‘fbvs’ first appeared in the conservative and liberal democrat coalition government’s revised prevent strategy in 2011. it stated that ‘fbvs’ are ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’. the following year, in 2012, the teachers’ standards included these values and required all teachers ‘not to undermine fundamental british values’. in november 2014, the coalition government produced guidelines on promoting ‘fbvs’. in september 2015, the newly elected conservative government transformed this guidance to a full duty, as defined in section 26 of the new counter terrorism and security act 2015. this legislative journey has taken place in the context of 1 https://www.theguardian.com/uknews/2019/aug/23/glasgow-university-slave-tradereparations broader social, political and economic developments in britain and the wider world. at the surface level, the current notion of ‘fbvs’ is a project to create a unified national identity in the uk (gove, 2015; spielman, 2017) but the notion of ‘british values’ has been a feature of the british political landscape for a number of years. although a detailed historiography of the notion of ‘british values’ is not the focus of this article, it is important to highlight that the formation of this notion has its roots in the history of the british empire. hall (2002), gopal (2019), mackenzie (1984) and thompson (2005) emphasise the role of britain’s imperial history in the making of the ‘british’ identity at home. mackenzie (1984) observes that the empire created an illusion of imperial ‘over-classes’ for the domestic ‘under-classes’ so that they could feel they were part of a bigger, national project (1984: 253-258). this project was conducted by ‘the state and great commercial companies, protected by the army and navy, and sanctified by the church’ (mackenzie, 1984, p. 255). thompson (2005) argues that ‘the empire’s “impact”, far from being forceful and aggressive, was often subtle and unobtrusive’ (2005: 241) but it was always there. hall (2002) and gopal (2019) emphasise how ‘britishness’ was made in the colonies, as the myth of ‘the nation of givers and liberators’ was created to propagate the ‘superiority’ of the ‘white british’ over the colonised ‘others’. the notion of ‘british values’ has been a changing phenomenon. in the late twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, it was utilised in political discourse in an ostensibly more ‘inclusive’ way. for example, after the landslide victory of tony blair’s new labour party in the general election of 1997, he proclaimed that ‘fighting poverty and unemployment’, ‘securing justice and opportunity and being a ‘compassionate society’ were main tenets of british values (blair, 1997). in 2000, in his ‘britain speech’, tony blair announced new ‘core british values’. they were: ‘fair play, creativity, tolerance https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/23/glasgow-university-slave-trade-reparations https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/23/glasgow-university-slave-trade-reparations https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/23/glasgow-university-slave-trade-reparations prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 93 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) and an outward-looking approach to the world’ (blair, 2000). in 2004, gordon brown, then the chancellor of the exchequer, contributed to these ‘core british values’ arguing that these should include: ‘a strong sense of national identity’, ‘a passion for liberty anchored in a sense of duty and an intrinsic commitment to tolerance and fair play’ and ‘the idea of duty as the virtue that reinforces neighbourliness and enshrines the idea of a public realm and public service’ (brown, 2004). within the first seven years of the new labour government (1997-2004) the notion of ‘british values’ shifted from a focus on ‘fighting poverty and unemployment’ to emphasising ‘a national identity’. i would argue that this shift was not an inadvertent move but rather a response to the changing social, economic and political climate. there were deeper causes, which made possible the politicians’ public announcements about ‘british values’. the ‘notion of british values’ was propagated by the labour governments until they lost office in 2010. since then, the concept of ‘core british values’ has evolved under successive governments: the 2010-15 conservative and liberal democrat coalition government, the 2015-2021 conservative governments. there were several influential turning points in the evolution of the current notion of ‘british values’2: 1. the riots in burnley, oldham and bradford in the summer of 2001. 2. the 11 september 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks in new york. 3. the 7 july 2005 (7/7) terrorist attacks in london. 4. young people from britain travelling to syria and iraq to join islamic state in iraq and syria (isis) following the unsuccessful uprising in syria (2014). 5. the so-called ‘trojan horse’ affair in birmingham and bradford schools (2014). the riots in the northern towns in the summer of 2001 had multiple causes, including industrial decline, 2 this is not a definitive list. however, i have used these events as markers to unpack the notion of ‘fbvs’. poverty, and racism (especially anti-muslim racism) (finney & simpson, 2009). kundnani (2001) argue that they were the direct result of a combination of the implementation of neo-liberal policies by the thatcher and subsequent conservative and new labour governments and the structural racism faced by black and minority ethnic communities. however, cantle (2001) and ouseley (2001) postulate that multiculturalism and the ‘self-segregation’ of asian communities were the main factors underlying the riots. according to cantle (2001) and ouseley (2001) the solution is the abandonment of multiculturalism in favour of ‘community cohesion’ and the promotion of ‘british national identity’. whilst the riots in northern towns and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in new york were the catalyst for the discourse on british values (blair, 2001), the political abandonment of multiculturalism in favour of the notion of ‘british values’ was initiated by the then prime minister, david cameron (cameron, 2011). following the 9/11 attacks george w. bush, president of the usa from 2001 to 2009, announced that ‘we will defend our way of life’, and he declared a ‘war on terror’ (bush, 2001). in his speech to congress, with the british prime minister tony blair present, he highlighted some of the elements of his notion of ‘our way of life’: ‘a democratically elected government …our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other … i ask you to uphold the values of america’ (bush, 2001). the notion of ‘our way of life’ was not new in us politics, george h. w. bush (bush senior), president of the usa from 1989 to 1993, had used the same language in 1990 when the usa was planning to attack iraq during the first gulf war (bush, 1990). the british government, under new labour’s tony blair, embraced bush’s (junior) notion of ‘our way of life’ by supporting the ‘war on terror’ (blair, 2001). the late tony benn, former labour mp for chesterfield, noted in his diary on 14 september 2001: prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 94 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) …i sat in the gallery and watched blair make his statement, which was really a sort of daily mail editorial. i didn’t think there was any depth or historical understanding about it. george galloway said every time you bomb the arab world, you recruit more suicide bombers, and said muslim blood doesn’t count in the same way that western blood counts, which is a vivid way of putting it. (benn, 2007, p.8) indeed, one could argue that history proved galloway right. london woke up to bombs on 7 july 2005, when ‘home grown terrorist’ attacks shocked the british population. this was a new kind of terrorist attack (kundnani, 2017) as, until 2005, terrorist attacks in britain had been largely related to irish nationalism, carried out by the irish republican army (ira) or its splinter groups (kundnani, 2015b, 2017). this time the suicide bombers were identified as asian british citizens and muslims. the 7/7 attacks in london by ‘home grown terrorists’ were another significant landmark in relation to defining these values. in his speech on multiculturalism (blair, 2006), following the 7/7 attacks, the prime minister, tony blair, redefined ‘core british values’ as: ‘the belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this county and its shared heritage’. some of these concepts were reinforced through government policies such as the introduction of compulsory citizenship education in secondary schools in 2002 (keating et al., 2010) and the introduction of the teaching of britishness following the ajegbo report of 20073. however, the current conception of ‘fbvs’ emerged from the definition of extremism in the uk government’s main counter terrorism strategy (contest) in 2011, which states that: extremism is vocal or active opposition to fundamental british values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs4. we also 3 this report reviewed ethnic, religious and racial diversity throughout the english secondary curriculum and advised the government to introduce teaching britishness as part of citizenship education (dfes, 2007). 4 italics are mine include in our definition of extremism calls for the deaths of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas. (ho, 2011, p.107) according to this definition, the notion of ‘fbvs’ is pivotal to the identification of extremism and identifying extremists is an important aspect of counter-terrorism. therefore, contextualisation and the emergence of the notion of ‘fbvs’ must be understood here in relation to wider counterterrorism policies and changes in political, socioeconomic and historical conditions following the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. 3. identifying ‘fbvs’: identifying the ‘other’ the dominant discourse on british values in political, media and academic spheres is one of identifying the ‘other’. for example, former prime minister david cameron’s (2010june 2016) 2015 christmas and 2016 easter messages referred to the values the british public hold. both messages emphasised that britain is a ‘christian’country and the values that the british hold are derived from christianity. in his christmas speech he said, ‘it is because of these important religious roots and christian values that britain has been such a successful home to people of all faiths and none’5. at easter he repeated again, ‘we are a christian country and we are proud of it’6. based on this former prime minister’s messages, non-christians, particularly muslim citizens, may justifiably ask: are ‘fbvs’, as identified within the contest christian values? in doing so, was cameron suggesting that these values derive from christian beliefs and other faiths (in particular, islam) must learn from christianity or their fellow ‘christian britons’? or was he simply implying that other faiths are not compatible with these values? perhaps he was refering to a superior 5 see pm’s christmas message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/christmas-2015prime-ministers-message , 6see pm’s easter message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/easter-2016david-camerons-message. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/christmas-2015-prime-ministers-message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/christmas-2015-prime-ministers-message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/easter-2016-david-camerons-message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/easter-2016-david-camerons-message prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 95 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) ‘occident’ and inferior ‘orient’, where ‘orient’ is denied space within the discurse of ‘fbvs’. cameron’s message was repeated by his successor, theresa may (july 2016 2019) in her 2017 christmas message. she stressed the ‘values we share: christian values of love, service and compassion7’. once again the hegemonic ideology is promoted as the unifying superior element of society and the ‘other’ is identified by their absence (dabashi, 2011). a channel 4 documentary, ‘what british muslims really think8’, presented by trevor phillips9 reinforced this idea of the ‘superiority’ of christian values. standing outside a church in london, he said ‘ this is the church where i was christened, what i learned here guides my attitudes and behaviour’. he referred to his ‘christian values’, then proceeded to compare his ‘values’ with muslims’ values. he refers to muslims as one homogeneous community: ‘down the road at finsbury park mosque attitudes are very different. for the believers in here the quran provides teaching and guidance for muslims to follow in all aspects of their lives’. he uses differences in religious beliefs as a form of ‘othering’ to establish that ‘muslims’ are different and live in a ‘parallel world’ (cameron, 2011; cantle, 2001; nazir-ali, 2008; ouseley, 2001) in the uk. linking ill-defined ‘british values’ (lander, 2016) to christian values is an example of ‘othering’ and is likely to further marginalise religious minorities in the uk. this is not a new means of ‘othering’ and discriminating against minorities in the west; there have been numerous previous examples (dabashi, 2012; virdee 2015). edward said argued that ‘hostility to islam in the modern christian west has historically gone hand in hand with, has stemmed from the same source, has been nourished at the same stream as anti-semitism’ (said, 2003: 99). the ‘othering’ process of muslim communities exemplified above has not materialised in a vacuum. 7 see pm’s christmas message https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-ministertheresa-mays-christmas-message-2017 8 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/what-britishmuslims-really-think baker et al. (2012) carried out a detailed study investigating the representation of the word ‘muslim’ in the british media which identified a propensity of associating muslims with negative nouns such as ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’. the study also highlighted that the media and policy makers treat muslims as one homogenous entity, frequently using the term ‘muslim world’ to describe the range of muslim communities and countries across the globe. this use of negative word associations in relation to muslims and islam is tied in with a process of dehumanasiation of muslim communities and immigrants in the uk and the rest of the western world (bhattacharyya, 2008: 78-82). this process has been accelerated since the syrian civil war began in 2011, from which the majority of immigrants to the uk and the eu have been muslim10. since 2012 the notion of ‘fbvs’ has been part of teachers’ standards (dfe, 2012) and since 2015 there is a duty to promote ‘fbvs’ in schools and colleges in england and wales (ho, 2015). i would argue that the introduction of the promotion of ‘fbvs’ through the national curriculum is an essential tool for identifying the new ‘other’, namely muslims. the active promotion of the notion of ‘fbvs’ is therefore a controversial issue (farrell and lander, 2019; habib, 2017) within the educational context. the controversy can be encapsulated within the following two inter-related strands: 1. the definition of ‘fbvs’ emerged directly from contest, bringing education within the realm of the counter terrorism strategy (farrell and lander, 2019); 2. working around the contest definition of ‘fbvs’ is problematic as it is ‘muddled’ and ‘hollow’ (richardson, 2015); hence the interpretations and application of ‘fbvs’ both by academics and practitioners are varied and ‘muddled’. 9 former chairman of the equality and human rights commission 10 https://www.unhcr.org/asylum-in-the-uk.html https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-theresa-mays-christmas-message-2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-theresa-mays-christmas-message-2017 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/what-british-muslims-really-think http://www.channel4.com/programmes/what-british-muslims-really-think prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 96 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) both of the above strands have their own historical, socio-economic and political contexts outside of, and within, the educational sphere (e.g ‘trojan horse’ affair, young people travelling to syria to join islamic state in syria) which have resulted in the ‘active promotion’ of ‘fbvs’ within the education system. 4. counter terrorism, extremism and ‘fbvs’ the definition of ‘fbvs’ has been transferred directly from the government’s definition of extremism. therefore, extremism is a salient factor in explaining the notion of ‘fbvs’. british governments used the term extremism at the beginning of the twentieth century to define the anti-colonialists who wanted full independence for india from british rule (kundnani, 2014). following the second world war, during the cold war period, the term was used to define communists on the left and anti-democratic extremists on the right. from 1989, with the end of the cold war, the definition was transferred from right and left ‘extremism’ to defining political groups working outside of parliamentary politics: trotskyist groups, anti-fascist groups, radical environmentalists, animal right activists, irish nationalists and islamic political movements (kundnani, 2017, p.148). the 9/11 attacks in the usa and the 7/7 bombing in the uk transformed the concept of extremism in the uk again. the new definition combined the term extremism with an ideology. according to sir norman bettison, extremism is a kind of infectious illness that spreads from one person to another; subsequently the illness turns the infected person into a terrorist (bettison, 2009). according to this formulation, in contrast to previous definitions, one does not need to be a member of a particular political group or an organisation or be involved in direct action to be identified as an extremist; holding a particular ideology, albeit non-violent, is enough to be deemed an extremist. the current narrative has been propagated by british politicians, (tony blair, 2005; david cameron, 11 http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlandsnews/trojan-horse-jihadist-plot-take-6782881 2011; theresa may 2015; boris johnson 2019), newspapers (daily mail; the sun; the times), thinktanks (the henry jackson society; the quilliam foundations) and even by a former chairman of the equality and human rights commission trevor philips (2006). in the gramscian sense, those in power have created a consensus ‘common sense’ argument about extremism and any counter arguments to the hegemonic narrative are dismissed as irrelevant. kundnani stated that ‘counter-definition had a certain presence but it nevertheless faltered over time in the face of the state’s better organised capacity to assert a different narrative’ (2017, p. 150). in 2011 the conservative government, under the home secretary theresa may, defined the concept of extremism as ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental british values’ (ho, 2011, p.107). the new definition of extremism was directly aimed at uk citizens because the perpetrators of the 7/7 bombings were born and brought up in britain. the term ‘home grown terrorist’ entered political discourse; the change in objective conditions necessitated a new way of defining the phenomenon. the new definition served to provide ‘meaning to disturbing and troubling events and restoring a sense of control over the world’ (kundnani, 2017, p.149). the definition of extremism as opposition to ‘fbvs’ provided the state apparatus with a justification for identifying citizens with ‘undesirable’ views. however, ‘fbvs’ were not utilised as a means of ‘restoring control’ through education until the so called ‘trojan horse’ affair (holmwood & o’toole, 2018). 5. the ‘trojan horse’ affair the notion of ‘fbvs’ identified in the revised prevent strategy in 2011 took a different turn after the alleged muslim plot to take over the governing bodies of certain birmingham schools in march 2014 (richardson, 2015). the events were named the ‘trojan horse’ affair. the birmingham mail reported the events as a ‘jihadist plot to take over schools’11. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/trojan-horse-jihadist-plot-take-6782881 http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/trojan-horse-jihadist-plot-take-6782881 prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 97 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) the ‘trojan horse’ affair was not limited to one city. following the investigation in birmingham, ofsted suggested that there might be a link between tahir alam, former chairman of the park view educational trust (birmingham), and some school governors in bradford (clarke, 2014). however, following police investigations, evidence proved that the whole affair was a hoax (hocec, 2015, p. 3). those accused of involvement in the ‘trojan horse’ affair were cleared of any wrongdoing12, however the detrimental stigma tainted the schools and the communities. the schools involved in the ‘trojan horse’ affair were part of an academy trust in birmingham. during the special ofsted inspection they were mainly criticised over ‘safeguarding’ and management issues. the ofsted inspectors also picked up on some conservative religious and cultural practices in these schools such as: segregation of the sexes, posters extolling the virtue of prayer and school visit to mecca in saudi arabia (see hocec, 2015). arthur (2015, p. 322-324) argued that some of those practices reflected the learners’ religious background, which raises the question: if learners had been taken on a skiing trip to switzerland or to visit the vatican in rome instead of mecca, would they have been criticised? the ofsted inspectors used what foucault (1977) described as ‘the technology of language’ to integrate the prevent strategy, as a new form of control, into the existing ‘safeguarding’ structure. in doing this ofsted started to become, in effect, an arm of the uk’s counter terrorism strategy. the policing of prevent and its implementation in education have become part of the remit of ofsted. this development has sanctioned the role of education in fighting against terrorism. although the ofsted inspections did not discover any elements of extremism or radicalisation in the schools (hocec, 2015), the governors were criticised for safeguarding and management issues and for failing to deliver ‘british’ values. this was notwithstanding the fact that the schools involved in 12 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/30/t rojan-horse-tribunal-five-birmingham-teachers-islam the ‘trojan horse’ affair had been graded as good or outstanding in their previous inspections with the one exception of laisterdyke school which had been judged as requiring improvement. ofsted’s judgments from its previous inspections were not questioned and the issue of what had materially changed between inspections was neither explained nor explored (arthur, 2015). holmwood and o’toole’s (2018) detailed study concludes that the whole affair was an attack on multiculturalism and a justification of the implementation of ‘muscular liberalism’13 (cameron, 2011) in education and wider society. this hoax affair was significant as it led to important policy changes for schools (holmwood & o’toole, 2018; o’toole et al., 2016). michael gove, the then secretary of state for education, played an important role in this respect. his department issued guidance on promoting british values in both independent and state-maintained schools. the guidance highlighted that teachers, managers and other staff working in educational institutions all have a duty to ‘actively promote’ the ‘fbvs’ as part of the wider curriculum (dfe, 2014b). lord nash, the then parliamentary under secretary of state for schools, explained that the changes were introduced to ‘tighten up the standards on pupil welfare to improve safeguarding, and the standards on spiritual, moral, social and cultural (smsc) development of pupils to strengthen the barriers to extremism’ (dfe, 2014c). a head teacher, richard cairns of brighton college, identifies the true focus of the ‘fbvs’ enterprise: gove’s stated values are written too precisely with young militant muslims in mind…the government’s focus is not on brighton college or schools like mine. its gaze is on the many thousands of young british muslims who share the same fundamental values as i do but are much more vulnerable than my pupils are to the poisonous whisperings of a perverted few. (cairns, 2015). 13 david cameron’s speech in munich in 2011, in which he challenges ‘the doctrine of state multiculturalism’. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/30/trojan-horse-tribunal-five-birmingham-teachers-islam https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/30/trojan-horse-tribunal-five-birmingham-teachers-islam prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 98 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) subsequently prevent (and ‘fbvs’) became part of the counter terrorism and security act 2015, which requires teachers, general practitioners and other professionals to report people who they suspect are at risk of being drawn into terrorism to prevent officers. webber (2015) argues that, in effect, the duty aims to use public sector workers to act on behalf of the security services and monitor citizens, in particular, muslim citizens. in 1977 deleuze stated in conversation with foucault that, ‘a wide range of professionals, teachers, psychiatrists, educators of all kinds, will be called upon to exercise functions that have traditionally belonged to the police’ (foucault, 1977, p. 207). prevent heralds the realization of the deleuzean prediction as teachers and other ‘servants of the state’ exercise this imposition of control over its subjects. in his critique, kundnani (2015) highlights similarities between prevent and the mccarthyian ‘red witch hunts’ of the 1950s in the us which demonised anyone opposed to us foreign policy and holding left wing views. poole (2018) argued that the ‘trojan horse’ affair has been used by the state apparatus to justify the dominant narrative of extremism and radicalisation. he explains: ‘ideology is responsible for extremism and that this led to terrorism, therefore any extreme ideas should be challenged’ (poole, 2018, p. 6). in the case of the uk ‘fbvs’ are to be used to tackle ‘extreme’ ideology at every level of compulsory education, including nursery level. it became clear after the trojan horse affair that: • the state intended to firmly implement the dominant ideology of ‘muscular liberalism’ (cameron, 2011) in order to propagate an antimulticulturalist, nationalist, anti-muslim and assimilationist agenda; and • ofsted and prevent would be instruments to ‘discipline’ and ‘control’ schools, teachers and students against ‘undesirable’ views which might conflict with the notion of ‘fbvs’. education institutions and educators have become active agents in promoting the notion of ‘fbvs’. it could be argued that they are now required to actively contribute to the reproduction of the common sense, hegemonic narrative of ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ identified within contest. 6. the muddled definition of ‘fbvs’ it has been a difficult task for many educators to operate within the official definition of ‘fbvs’ because it is muddled (richardson, 2015) and ill-defined (lander, 2016). struchers, (2016) and vanderbeck and johnson, (2016) attempt to project the positive aspects of the notion of ‘fbvs’. richardson (2015) argues that the difficulty does not lie in the promotion of ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’ themselves but in the adjectives attached to these values: ‘fundamental’ and ‘british’. the etymology of the notion of ‘fbvs’ is not the concern of this article, however studies carried out amongst teachers and trainee teachers have highlighted the problematic nature of associating ‘fundamental’ and ‘british’ with these values (farrell & lander 2019; 2016; habib, 2017; revell & bryan, 2016; panjwani, 2016). empirical studies have also suggested (revell & bryan, 2016; taylor & soni, 2017) that the dfe’s requirement for teachers not to engage in ‘undermining fundamental british values’ (dfe, 2012) and to promote them both inside and outside of schools (dfe, 2014a) has created a culture of fear and avoidance of honest discussion of controversial issues (taylor & soni, 2017: 245). even though many educators (farrell, 2016; habib, 2017), academics and teaching unions (nut, ucu) reject these state prescribed values and their promotion, ‘fbvs’ have become part of teachers’ (and other public sector workers in identifying radicalisation) day to day classroom practices in england and wales (teachers’ standard 2012; elton-chalcraft et al 2016; habib, 2017; holmwood & o’toole, 2018) since promoting ‘fbvs’ became a duty. the interpretation and utilisation of ‘fbvs’ by teachers and education institutions has proved problematic in practice. recent empirical studies conducted with teachers have revealed that educators and schools are not clear about what ‘fbvs’ prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 99 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) are, how they should be delivered and their relevance (elton-chalcraft et al 2016; farrell, 2016; habib, 2017; lander, 2016; maylor, 2016; mccully & clarke, 2016; panjwani, 2016). these empirical studies conclude that the notion of ‘fbvs’ is ambiguous, and has resulted in various interpretations depending on a schools’ locality or the pupils’ religious and ethnic backgrounds. its muddled and incoherent nature makes the notion problematic. kundnani (2017) makes the following point in relation to the definition of extremism which gave rise to ‘fbvs’: thus, the incoherence of the definition was not a barrier to the term’s proliferation in policymaking and public discussion but necessary for it. the consistency needed was not in the word’s definition but in its political effects. and the consistency of those effects was secured by the consistency of those with the power to shape the word’s meanings. (kundnani, 2017, p.156) this argument is also relevant to the notion of ‘fbvs’ itself. the utilisation of the term ‘fbvs’ has been shaped by people with power within, (education ministers, ofsted, head teachers and educators) and outside of the education system (parliament, the home office and the media). they have promoted a paradoxical notion of ‘fbvs’ which simultaneously contains both ambiguity and clarity. it is ambiguous precisely because of its muddled definition. it is clear because it identifies the new ‘other’: muslims. ‘fbvs’ also provides a potential impetus for people to identify other ‘others’ e.g. blacks, ethnic minorities and certain european immigrants (eastern europeans, roma people) in the absence of the new racialised muslim ‘other’ (dabashi, 2011; göle, 2017; sayyid, 2015). some argue that the promotion of ‘fbvs’ presents an opportunity to promote other positive agendas. it can be interpreted and utilised to teach issues such as human rights (struchers, 2016), lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (lgbt) rights (vanderbeck & johnson, 2016) and cosmopolitanism (hildebrand, 2016). they claim that the intentions behind the introduction of ‘fbvs’ are not negative. on the contrary they are beneficial for young people and the communities in which they live. others have contested the use of the words ‘fundamental’ and ‘british’ within the concept, in favour of ‘universal values’ or ‘human values’ (richardson, 2015; struthers, 2017). in doing so they are adopting a dual stance: criticism of elements of the notion on the one hand and refurbishing it on the other. struthers (2017) promotes the teaching of ‘human rights values’ and criticises the notion of ‘fbvs’ for its lack of reference to the broader human rights framework. she rightly notes that the ‘fbvs’ guidance is arguably a threat to the teaching of human rights values’ (struthers, 2017: 100). whilst she recognises the discriminatory nature of ‘fbvs’, she has not been able to provide explicit answers to the questions: ‘who has/have been discriminated against?’ and ‘why have they been discriminated against?’ struthers’ solution to the problems ‘fbvs’ creates for educators is to adopt a different interpretation of ‘fbvs’. she suggests that: ‘interpreting ‘fbvs’ within the broader context of human rights values, such as universality, equality and common humanity, would arguably provide a solution’ (struthers, 2017, p. 103). i will define this type of approach as ‘a positive critical interpretation’ where the interpreter is in agreement that there should be some teaching of ‘values’ and that there are some grounds to link these to britishness. richardson (2015) also promotes a ‘positive critical interpretation’ of ‘fbvs’. he argues that the policy of ‘fbvs’ has caused much damage in schools, colleges and universities therefore ‘much critical, corrective, and restorative work’ (richardson, 2015, p. 37) needs to be done. richardson even proposed an alternative phrasing of ‘fbvs’ for the home office: ‘the fundamental values and principles which underline public life in the united kingdom’ (richardson, 2015: 41). even though richardson is openly critical of ‘fbvs’ (bolloten & richardson, 2014), he has not succeeded in extricating himself from the framework of hegemonic thinking. he has thus arrived at a position of working around a policy aligned to state interests rather than representing the interests of the affected people. i would argue that even ‘a positive critical interpretation’ of ‘fbvs’ can have a damaging role in prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 100 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) educational institutions, because the notion of ‘fbvs’ itself is divisive and serves to promote a subtle discriminatory rhetoric. the nature of ‘fbvs’ has been veiled behind the ‘good cause’ of protecting ‘vulnerable’ young people from the dangers of ‘radicalisation’. it can be argued that those who have justified ‘fbvs’ in line with their own interests and those who have attempted to refurbish/rebrand ‘fbvs’ have lost (or never had) sight of the underlying state interests behind the promotion of ‘fbvs’ in schools, namely the advancing of ‘muscular liberalism’ (cameron, 2011) and a tool to tackle ‘nonviolent terrorism’ (ho, 2015) and radicalisation (ho, 2011). the notion of ‘fbvs’ explicitly defines what should and should not be part of the ‘imagined14’ british values. accepting the notion means accommodation to the hegemonic ‘common sense’. this ‘common sense’ narrative of ‘fbvs’ is discriminative in its nature (see the united nations report on uk15). in light of its inherent ‘othering’, the promotion of the notion can be identified as a racist educational practice. attempts to reform the notion result in justifying, intentionally or unintentionally, an inherently racist endeavour. 7. wider interpretations and utilisation of ‘fbvs’ the notion of ‘fbvs’ was introduced as part of an anti-radicalisation agenda within the education system however, following the ‘trojan horse’ affair, the notion has been explicitly used to explain and challenge a broad and flexible spectrum of deeply rooted social problems within british society. examples include challenging homophobia (‘trojan horse’ affair: see holmwood & o’toole, 2018), child 14 i borrowed the term ‘imagined’ from benedict anderson’s (2006) seminal book imagined communities. 15 https://unacov.uk/un-human-rights-council-criticisesprevent/ 16 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4218648/britishpakistani-men-raping-exploiting-white-girls/ 17 https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breakingnews/schools-be-trained-spot-radicalisation-newgovernment-commission sex abuse (sarah champion labour mp16 and women’s oppression (spielman and home office17). whenever the absence of ‘fbvs’ has been used to explain a societal problem, a particular group has been the focus of the criticism, namely muslims. in 2017 the department of education announced that it was developing a specific ‘‘fbvs’ curriculum, which will assist school staff in ‘building pupils’ resilience to extremist ideologies’18. the head of ofsted, amanda spielman, said that, ‘the education system has a vital role in upholding the principles that make us a beacon of liberalism, tolerance and fairness to the rest of the world’ (guardian, 22, september, 2017). she was effectively arguing for a form of social engineering, claiming that schools have ‘a vital role in inculcating and upholding them (‘fbvs’)’ (guardian, 22, september, 2017). whilst promoting the ‘fbvs’ of ‘tolerance and fairness’, spielman announced that ofsted inspectors will be questioning pupils wearing a ‘hijab’ in schools, because it ‘could be interpreted as sexualisation’ and ‘…fundamentalist groups influencing school policy’. spielman argued that: ‘in seeking to address these concerns, and in line with our current practice in terms of assessing whether the school promotes equality for their children, inspectors will talk to girls who wear such garments to ascertain why they do so in the school’. (guardian, 19 november, 2017) both leading campaigners against the hijab in schools, amina lone from the social action and research foundation and spielman have used the same arguments of ‘liberal values’ and promotion of equality in schools19. however, their sensitivity about muslim girls wearing the hijab does not appear to extend to other religious symbols worn by school children e.g. the jewish kippah or sikh turban20. the 18 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/government-developingfundamental-british-values-curriculum/ 19 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/19/s chool-inspectors-to-question-primary-school-girls-whowear-hijab 20 there was no legislation protecting against religious discrimination in britain until the full incorporation of the human rights act of 1998. the race relations act 1976 regarded jews and sikhs as ethnic groups whereas https://unacov.uk/un-human-rights-council-criticises-prevent/ https://unacov.uk/un-human-rights-council-criticises-prevent/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4218648/british-pakistani-men-raping-exploiting-white-girls/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4218648/british-pakistani-men-raping-exploiting-white-girls/ https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/schools-be-trained-spot-radicalisation-new-government-commission https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/schools-be-trained-spot-radicalisation-new-government-commission https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/schools-be-trained-spot-radicalisation-new-government-commission https://schoolsweek.co.uk/government-developing-fundamental-british-values-curriculum/ https://schoolsweek.co.uk/government-developing-fundamental-british-values-curriculum/ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/19/school-inspectors-to-question-primary-school-girls-who-wear-hijab https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/19/school-inspectors-to-question-primary-school-girls-who-wear-hijab https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/19/school-inspectors-to-question-primary-school-girls-who-wear-hijab prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 101 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) announcement, in november 2017, by a grammar school in kent of its plans to create ‘unsafe space’ where learners can discuss the pros and cons of hitler’s mein kampf and subjects such as ‘women versus feminism’ and ‘not all cultures are created equal’21 did not cause concern for ofsted. spielman’s comments on the hijab can be considered an attempt at politicisation and securitisation of muslim women’s choice of dress. the banning of the wearing of the ‘niqab’ in public in france and some other eu countries (austria, belgium, germany, bulgaria22) or targeting muslim style swim wear, the ‘burkini’, on french beaches are other examples of this agenda. saeed (2016) argues that muslim women studying at uk universities have been securitised because of their choice of dress code. she identifies the attack on muslim women’s dress code as gendered anti-muslim racism. saeed comments that ‘the right to practise islam is often portrayed as antithetical to britishness’ (2016:26). it can be argued that, within the educational context, ofsted has interpreted visible muslimness in primary schools from the perspective of neo-colonialist and racist narratives. spielman’s comments support the superior ‘occident’ over the inferior ‘orient’ argument. she said that, ‘we know that even in the uk some children are being brought up in an environment that is actively hostile to some of these values (‘fbvs’)’ (22 september 2017). she does not explicitly talk about muslim families, however her constant reference to the ‘trojan horse’ affair indicates what she means by ‘some children’. she was referring to ‘subaltern’ muslim families. the introduction of ‘fbvs’ in the school curriculum is not simply the end result of factors (e.g. security needs) outside of the education system but is also muslims, buddhists and hindus were not. tariq modood (2007) highlighted anti-muslim discrimination following the salman rushdie affair and the runnymede trust initiated discussion on islamophobia in 1997, but muslims were not legally protected until the introduction of the equality act 2010. 21 https://www.theguardian.com/uknews/2017/nov/20/kent-grammar-school-announcesplans-for-unsafe-space-including-mein-kampf part of the wider political, social, economic and historical conditions of the current epoch. and the current epoch has its roots in britain’s colonial history (social, political and economic aspects included). alongside its discriminative ‘anti-radicalisation’23 function, the notion of ‘fbvs’ can be understood as ‘colonial nostalgia’ (lander, 2016). 8. conclusion at the time of writing this conclusion, donald trump, an anti-muslim, anti-immigrant, pro whitesupremacist businessman has lost the presidential election in the usa. the blm movement played an important role in this election. it reminded us that anti-racism is alive and kicking. however, anti-muslim and anti-immigrant racism has not subsided; on the contrary, it has received increased legitimacy within the usa and the european union states (law et al., 2018). the changing national and international political and economic landscape has influenced the social relations between white british and muslim communities in the uk and europe. i maintain that these developments were not serendipitous; the normalisation of anti-immigrant and anti-muslim racism, fused with austerity, resulted in this rise of far-right racist parties. the local, national and european elections have been the democratic voice of ‘new racism’ in europe (fekete, 2017; kundnani, 2015) and the introduction of ‘fbvs’ into the education system is an integral component of these political developments. in the spirit of anti-racist public intellectualism and social justice, i would recommend that educators should actively campaign to: 22 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/world/europe/qu ebec-burqa-ban-europe.html 23 https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breakingnews/exclusive-school-anti-terror-referrals-surge-amidclimate-fear prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 102 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) • abolish the policy of promoting ‘fbvs’; • remove any reference to the notion of ‘fbvs’ from the teachers’ standards’; • include anti-racist, anti-colonialist and multicultural teaching in the national curriculum; • provide extensive training for trainee and experienced teachers to implement anti-racist, anti-colonialist and multicultural teaching. i would argue that these aims cannot be achieved by isolated, individual actions. as the promotion of the notion of ‘fbvs’ is a duty (home office, 2015), ofsted is policing its delivery and, in some schools, its promotion has become part of the appraisal structure (revell and bryan, 2016), individual actions could place practitioners in a vulnerable position. they could find themselves being isolated and may also place themselves in breach of their contracts. opposition to the promotion of ‘fbvs’ must therefore be delivered through organised collective trade union action. this could be built upon existing trade union policies concerning the prevent strategy. all the major education unions, nut24 (2016), ucu (2015) and nus (2015) have anti-prevent policies. the scope of these policies should be extended to active opposition to the promotion of ‘fbvs’ i.e. operationalised. in campaigning, practitioners, academics, students and parents would be progressing beyond opposition to the notion of ‘fbvs’. they would be contributing to the creation of a present, and future, anti-racist, multi-cultural society and decolonised curriculum. 9. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 10. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: 24 now national education union (neu) since 1 september 2017 this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d prism (2021) yıldız (2021) prism 103 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 11. references ajegbo, k. 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(2018). republic of islamophobia: the rise of respectable racism in france. hurst & company. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/22/schools-should-not-be-afraid-to-promote-british-values-says-ofsted-head https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/22/schools-should-not-be-afraid-to-promote-british-values-says-ofsted-head https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663916656752 https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2017.1358296 https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/7523/business-of-the-recruitment-organising-and-campaigning-committee-2015#62 https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/7523/business-of-the-recruitment-organising-and-campaigning-committee-2015#62 https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/7523/business-of-the-recruitment-organising-and-campaigning-committee-2015#62 https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/8863/ucu-response-to-report-on-anti-terror-strategy-prevent-in-schools-and-colleges https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/8863/ucu-response-to-report-on-anti-terror-strategy-prevent-in-schools-and-colleges https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/8863/ucu-response-to-report-on-anti-terror-strategy-prevent-in-schools-and-colleges http://www.irr.org.uk/news/farewell-magna-carta-the-counter-terrorism-and-security-bill/ http://www.irr.org.uk/news/farewell-magna-carta-the-counter-terrorism-and-security-bill/ prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 4 “knowing” from a distance: an improv(is)ed dialogue about constellations of meaning copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 4-19 sophia deterala liverpool hope university deteras@hope.ac.uk eula bianca villar universitat ramon llull ebvillar@salleurl.edu abstract through a dialogical exchange about disasters, we explore the notion of “knowing” by drawing on our own experience and research about improvisation and disaster management. locating our work within our positionalities as expatriate filipino researchers of considerable distance/closeness from each other, we find, albeit serendipitously, how our improvisational methodologies can occur en route to, during, and in, the aftermath of crisis. through reconstructions of the calamitous, we establish certain distances with the event itself, disaster victims, ourselves, and other improvisers of meaning such as media journalists. we propose that this network of knowing forms part of the constellational relationships of meaning-making about disasters. 1. introduction we began this dialogic exchange with an explicit openness towards the idea of improvisation. bianca and i share an interest in the emergent process of spontaneity and were eager to engage in a process of knowledge production wherein we were yet to find out how or what we were supposed to “know.” bianca is a researcher in the field of disaster management organizations, and i have been engaged in thinking about education and research methodology. bianca and i are both in the final stages of our phd programmes. we prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 5 are both filipinos and went to the same school but did not belong to the same year level and thus had very little opportunity to become more acquainted with each other. nevertheless, we found ourselves linked by this previous experience. as we responded to the call of papers for this issue, we took this small relational foundation a step further. we also took the concept of “disaster” and improvisation as starting point that we might develop further. we have both written about improvisation within our fields of interest and were eager to find out what we could collaboratively re-create. in her recent work (villar, 2018), bianca takes on disaster response teams’ enactment of improvisation in terms of a spectrum of deviance that ranges from ‘slight deviation’ to ‘total overhaul’ (p. 1). she stresses an important ethical dilemma regarding improvisation by citing the example of costa concordia wherein 30 people died after response teams carried out initiatives that digressed from official disaster response protocol. thinking about improvisation in relation to saving lives created a more dangerous picture of improvisation than i had expected. my focus on improvisation lies in its role in the process of research, as i problematise the question of whether knowledge is something that can (or must) be pursued (deterala, owen, su, bamber, & stronach, 2018). but there is also a sense of danger in this question that resonates with bianca’s ethical issue about deviance, which i will turn to later. as the initiator of this exchange, i (sophia) took on a more active role in our enquiry, suggesting methodological ideas, writing prompts, and other contributions. however, we kept in mind that as well as writing about improvisation, we were also trying to enact it. we tried to keep a sense of collegial mutuality between us, being open to what our project could become whilst at the same time setting the topic of our exchanges within the scope of class privilege in relation to disaster and education. dialogue, however, is a free-flowing interaction that does not begin with an agreed outcome (bohm, 1996). any appearance of coherence and agreement only came about in retrospect, and our initial agenda was not abandoned but became less central. as well as questioning our class privilege as enabling more access to education, we also consequently fragmented more coherent discourses about “knowing”. our exchanges thus spilled over and took a direction towards methodological critique. we find that this is only one deviation out of the other conceptual turns that have occurred throughout this piece. a slight deviation from bohm’s critique of dialogue is another. dialogues between me and bianca occurred through non-traditional “face-to-face” channels. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 6 as bianca was then in barcelona and i was in a city in the north west of england, we used email and video chat as channels that, in bianca’s words, are full of “noise,” some of which might stem from the smorgasbord nature of our interaction. most of what are written down are a mixture of edited and untouched emails, diary entries, and even facebook messages. although speaking before the turn of the millennium, bohm (1996, p. 1) expresses a disdain of the current proliferation of channels of communication: during the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, television, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communications which puts each part of the world into almost instant contact with all the other parts. yet, in spite of this worldwide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale. the above description is still a good fit with the historical and social context wherein our recent conversations occurred. however, bianca and i worked together in a way that resists the ironic blend between miscommunication and an increasingly connected world. we also concede that these instances of (missed) communications form part of our (mis)understandings. sharing bohm’s aversion from typical assumptions about connectivity, buchanan disagrees with unproblematic analogy of similarities between the internet and the rhizome (deleuze & guattari, 1987). contending that ‘google searches are very far from disinterested’, buchanan (2007, p. 12) suggests that the rhizome is too intricate a mess for the capitalist activities spun in the world wide web. in this paper, we highlight such kinds of interestedness, not only in the way social and mass media can convey knowledge. we also try to bring to the surface our own reified conceptions about learning. through our attempts to make the same kind of reflexive deviation from our familiar ways of understanding, we did not arrive at a more singular, straight conception about the range of ideas within our enquiry (e.g., a more corroborated definition of disasters or improvisation), but realised that our exchanges moved towards what we term a “constellational” form of shared knowledge. we adopted this metaphor, as our exchanges occurred from various vantage points expressed as perspectives, translations, subjects, disciplines, or identities – our constellational “stars.” we also did not always agree, another one of our digressions from parallel understanding. these various prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 7 points, although producing incohesive and incompatible knowledg-es, help us create a pattern of meaning which is open to rethinking and re-drawing. the aforementioned danger in improvisation lies within this risky business of openness, which allows for improvisation. however, as any disaster management team might concur, this allowance for digression allows for more humane and empathetic approaches to structure. 2. dialogue sophia: in late 2013, i found out about the yolanda tragedy in the news and felt a crippling sadness. i listened to death metal as a way to relate to the victims’ pain, and to inundate my own. rapture of the dying age, a shattered hourglass wrath of the warring gods and so this too shall pass. it's only getting worse, not worth a moment's regret each dawn another curse, every breath a twisting blade what will be left behind in the ashes of the wake? (machine & log, 2004) i created new meaning out of this song's words, relating them all to the tragedy. i felt the throbbing of my heart in the torrential drumming of the double bass. as i rode the fxi on my way to work, i wondered if the other passengers felt the same. not long after this disaster, a downpour of relief aid from other countries came flowing into the philippines. other countries have also heard about the misfortune of people hit by the strongest typhoon we have had so far. and we are not strangers from typhoons. as if poverty was not strong enough of a whip, yolanda decided to deal a more unimaginably painful strike on the samar-leyte region. all my menial worries flew out of the fx window. as the death toll increased, stories from the people left behind were also (re)counted. the media need not have exaggerated – children’s arms had been ‘ripped off’. a picture of a father cradling his dead child’s body was permanently imprinted on my mind. and whenever i recall this disaster, the recurring image prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 8 of a father and his child makes me feel i was somehow part of this moment, however distant i was from those who experienced it. bianca: i had just arrived in barcelona to start my phd two months before haiyan happened. coincidentally, my phd project was about crisis management. during that time, i had the vaguest idea as to what aspect of crisis management i will be working on. the eu project i was engaged in looked at how it-enabled and networked-enabled firms operate in crisis environments. i entered the program thinking mostly about small and medium enterprises back in the philippines and how they work in disaster environments. i was also thinking about the use of social media, how critical organizations communicate, how different organizing processes come together to implement an organized response to disasters. i was learning about disasters from a certain angle when haiyan happened. and when it did, i was confronted by a deep longing of home, and instant knowledge. what can i do as a person who has just embarked on a career that seeks to understand disasters? there was a surge of information everywhere, there was a narrative of panic, of pity, of government inaction (as if the government was the only legitimate actor that could make things happen). what are the myths? what is sensationalised? what do i treat as noise? i felt helpless, and lost, and mostly emotional while i watched the news. at that point in my career, i was advised not to ‘fall native’ to the phenomena. i am a researcher, regardless of my nationality. i must be objective, they said. i must not be biased, they said. sophia: it’s interesting how we are referring to the same typhoon yet call it by different names. haiyan is a more international name, by which people outside the philippines have called the typhoon (see, for example, mazumdar, 2013). yolanda, a more hispanic-sounding name which more closely reflects the philippines’ colonial and cultural history, was used by local authorities in official announcements about the storm. the local name suggests a sense of territoriality and responsibility. personally, i feel yolanda evokes a familiarity connected to my identity. haiyan sounds more professional and less intimate, suggesting that the typhoon prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 9 and its site of impact was a spectacle, a place to be watched from a distance or from the outside. thinking about this binary more reflexively, i am reminded about the complex relationship between naming and affect. names posit problems related to mistranslations and the well-known lack of equivalences between symbol and referent (ebert, 1986; fischer, 2011). a much more calamitous effect of missed translation should be noted. the victims of haiyan/yolanda experienced a tragic difficulty in interpreting the phrase “storm surge,” which came as part of a warning issued by the local weather authorities. the people directly affected by yolanda could not fully appreciate the graveness of the warning, as the phrase did not elicit a response, not even of a ‘deviant’ nature. there was no known visayan equivalent to “storm surge,” as the typhoon victims have not heard about it before. the linguistic problem crucial to the disaster that later occurred was much less a case of a saussurean equivalence (arbol = tree) or a derridean catachresis (storm surge = tsunami), than a spivakian muteness (storm surge =?!). the representational conundrum was not a case of mistranslation or lack of fit, but between a representation and a missing interpretation. a plethora of suggested names for “storm surge” have since been given through mass media and social media in the aftermath of yolanda, including humbak (finding a filipino word for storm surge: 'daluyong' or 'humbak'? , 2013), tsu-alon, tsu-balod (oposa, 2013), silakbô (rodolfo, 2013), and daluyong-bagyoii. oposa (2013) offers a summary of the tragic consequences of this lack, and contends that the tragic non-translation is more political than merely linguistic: in the first place, our people did not understand what a storm surge was because it is an english term that does not have a commonly understood local translation. this was compounded by the fact that our people have never experienced a storm surge of such magnitude. thus, the warnings of a 7-meter storm surge did not seem real to us. had our weather bureau better explain what a storm surge was or called it a tsunami-like wave, the people of tacloban would have run for their lives and rushed to higher ground. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 10 besides, how many times have we experienced the power of a typhoon signal no. 4? come to think of it, yes, we experience it every day. but it does not come in the form of wind and rain. rather, it comes in the form of political egos with sustained winds of a typhoon signal no. 10 we have thus far argued for the difference between knowledge that is different from "instant knowledge.” knowledge that affects emotions do not constitute a ready concoction such as when zagefka, noor and brown (2013) “added” geographical and cultural knowledge to what participants knew about a certain place of disaster. a more complex conception of knowledge is missing here. it is not something researchers (or other knowers) can simply “fall native” to. many doctoral students like us are advised to somehow establish some distance between ourselves and the objects of our research. but is not this distance already inherent in the act of trying to know? becoming native implies that a researcher has succumbed to a way of viewing the object of research which brings them to the same position as this object. in closing this gap, researchers move to a place of reflexivity, which wouldn't count as a venue wherein valid scientific research is conducted. perhaps "certain angle" is a contradiction. it appears that the dominant methods of crisis management research encourage viewing disasters from a perspective of “certainty”, yet researchers attempt to systematically address the unknown, or what is yet to be known. this is indeed a disturbing paradox that you have noted elsewhere (villar & miralles, 2015). furthermore, a positionality of certitude is in itself a 'view from nowhere' (lather, 2007), in that it cannot reveal its own implicit assumptions. a differently critical and ethical move in writing about learning would be to acknowledge distance as an aspect of researcher effect instead of maintaining it as a component of researcher objectivity. looking at our first recollections, an obvious distance seems to be geographical. you were in barcelona and i was in manila when the typhoon haiyan/yolanda made a landfall on the visayas region of the philippines. we were at a safe distance from the destruction and have heard of the calamity through the media. our emotional response was perhaps brought about by a closeness that we felt we had with the disaster victims (more on this later), but at this point it is important to try to look at how we view the disaster to prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 11 acknowledge that we occupy a place of privilege wherein our own social and not only geographical position can become more apparent. our educational attainment and its concomitant place of privilege contributes to how far we are from our 'objects' of affection and compassion. the angle from which we view the haiyan/yolanda disaster is certainly different from the vantage point of its victims. instead of de-contaminating us from nativised subjectivity, this renewed knowledge about researcher distance highlights the fraught enterprise of trying to know from a relational and contextualised perspective. bianca: i must fully disclose that the feelings as i described it in the previous paragraphs are written in light of my recollections as a freshman phd candidate. this stage, at least based on my experience, is characterised by an overwhelming surge of passion and impulse. i was passionate because this was my country they were talking about on the news, and i was impulsive because i was supposed to be [or was under the impression that i was] in a position of authority as far as knowledge is concerned, i.e. “that’s what i study, i should be useful”. in retrospect, i was just beginning to appreciate the different perspectives on making knowledge workable through research which we later on learn as ontologies and epistemologies. even as i became more exposed to the philosophy of science, i think, in retrospect, that everything took time. this was essential to see the maturity of a thought, the process of being comfortable in what we aim to do with the kind of knowledge we are creating or discovering as a result of our own research endeavours. i find that research positionality is a decision that should be consciously made by the researcher, with due consideration of their epistemological and ontological comforts, i.e. that which they identify with. as regards the following commentary: sophia: it appears that the dominant methods of crisis management research encourage viewing disasters from a perspective of “certainty,” yet researchers attempt to systematically address the unknown, or what is yet to be known i will have to respectfully disagree. i think that the dominance of approaches is less hinged on whether we cling to a perspective of certainty vs uncertainty. every discipline that tackles disasters and crises have very specific best practices. for example, the field of engineering tends to focus modelling risks and vulnerability and looking at effects on certain outcomes. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 12 on the other hand, studying disasters from the perspective of sociology will also consider the processes that lead to certain outcomes. sociologists whose works are seminal in disaster research argue that ‘at the core of disaster management are twin foundations of preparedness and improvisation’ (drabek & macentire, 2003, p. 108). as a result, a level of flexibility must be critically reflected in the conduct of disasters research. meanwhile, i fully support the need to acknowledge distance as a researcher effect. the kind of stories we highlight, and the solutions we put forth are derived from our own positions. likewise, i would argue that ‘emotional response’ will also figure in as a part of researcher effect. depending on the discipline one is coming from, and depending on the researcher’s epistemological orientation, emotional response can be more or less apparent in the manner of communicating knowledge regarding disasters. sophia: perhaps we are on the same page, looking from different angles. the dynamic capabilities theory and resource based view (rbv) approaches as you have noted (villar & miralles, 2015) assume some certainty from knowledge about resources about how organizations would respond to disasters, without considering micro-level adjustments made by individuals. responses to disasters are much more dynamic than simply trying to determine outcomes from a 'specific angle' (e.g. the availability of valuable resources): ‘rbv proved limited in its applicability among organizations that operate in environments that are characterised by high degree of change and dynamism’ (villar and miralles, 2015, p. 3). i concur that whether these methods are anchored on certainty or existing approaches are “dominant” should not be our cathectic focus, as this would be a return to an insistence on a “best practice” that would trump other validities. we turn to: epistemological indeterminacy in order to underscore contemporary interest in situatedness, perspective, relationality, narrative, poesis and blurred genres. it then surveys across the field of social inquiry in terms of the variety of available discourses of validity in order to delineate the weakening of any ‘one best way approach’ to validity (lather, 2007, p. 5161) improvisation is inevitably necessary before and during the ‘unfolding’ of the contingencies of disasters (villar and miralles, 2015), but how about post-disaster reprism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 13 construction through various levels of epistemological and ontological distances? in this way, our inclusive methodology (invoking reminiscences, emotional responses and consequently the unapologetically subjective) is a resistance towards a masquerading act of objectivity in what is considered more “scientific” forms of research. it is also a response to onedimensional correlations between various factorial components neatly stripped of entanglements concomitant with the process of research conducted by human subjects. if we are to make a more humane enquiry into the tragic as experienced by disaster victims then it would be just to acknowledge how our processes of ‘knowing’ are interwoven with the trauma, loss and failure that reverberate within and outside ground zeros of disasters and calamities. architecting improvisations is necessary before and during the ‘unfolding’ of the contingencies of disasters (villar & miralles, 2015). similar to the lack of fit between plans and action in disaster management organizations (aligned/deviated), an ontological violence is also at play between the actual and the perceived (real event/proposed representation) as we think about disasters in relation to our experience (or as we have learned through our recollections, our lack of it). the ‘more or less’ of emotional responses as you have described is also contingent on onto-epistemological dis/positions. by locating our current dialogue within the personal in our knowledge production processes we have dipped our toes into a rather murky (instead of pure) research endeavour. you are careful to delineate between different sorts of disaster, prioritising an ethically social meaning, if the life sustaining functions of a social system breaks down over the personal: bianca: if we take the meaning of disasters as i have described above, i would say that i have not experienced a disaster while doing my phd. certain disasters occurred, for sure, in the course of my phd. but it is difficult to identify where these delineations begin to dissipate, as individuals comprise the collective, and vice versa. this is relevant to the concept of ‘shared humanity’ that we have discussed earlier. this is poignant in one of your journal entries: prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 14 bianca: the crash of mh17 brought this terrible news of 298 human lives lost… some of them and this hits me the most just wanted to get to a scientific conference. they were knowledge builders, movers of the scientific community… i am a researcher; i go to conferences myself. i live miles away from my family and loved ones, too, and i do travel to reunite with them on a regular basis. i could have been one of those people… however, because we did not suffer the physical loss ourselves, and our bodies were not hit directly with its fatal impact, mere empathic anguish would never suffice. the event of danger is relegated to hazard instead of actual tragedy, and we do not allow ourselves the audacity of calling it our own. but is our refusal to own the tragic, conversely, also an inappropriate disavowal? no matter who happens to be on the physical site of danger, shouldn’t we call it our disaster, considering what we universally share (i.e. “i could have been”)? if we take our similarities seriously, feelings of deep anguish “from a distance” could not be negated by the difference between casualty or survival. however, “knowing” takes on a specific dimension through categorical specifications of belonging, allowing us to assert certain levels of intimacy with the victims. bianca: after our conversation, and after this exchange, i have had the opportunity to reflect on what it means to really ‘know’ about disasters. it seems to me that all this time, disasters have merely been a context, a starting point for conversation to know something beyond the surface. i cannot help but highlight the following aspects of our shared introspection: 1. this is a story of two people, different but the same, come together with the intention of knowing about something. a. similar they come from the same country, speak the same language, they went to the same school as teenagers, were educated by the same teachers in secondary school, wrote for the same school newspaper publication, both women, both married, of the same generation, both left their mother countries, and academics in training. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 15 b. different they were trained differently in research, with different disciplines, one is a mother, another is only thinking about one day becoming a mother, one lives with her husband, the other in a long distance marriage and struggling with the constraints of dual career options for academics. 2. when they picked the theme, disaster, as a starting point for knowing about something, one had a formalised scholarly training for understanding disasters, and the other was in a state of more general knowledge. inevitably, the one who was trained in disaster scholarship, tried to carefully delineate the definitions, the best practices, and empirical grounding of disasters. she presented her knowledge about disasters as a package with pre-existing structural scaffolding. when the other person came to ask, “have you experienced a disaster in your phd or personal life?” there was an impulsive need for she who knows disaster as a science to present it as science. i think this is the part that opened up a possibility to revisit the structural scaffolding of something that we assume to know better because of our formal training about the topic. my gut reaction to that question was to define disaster and remove myself from the story. however, when you showed me a raw mind map of how you think about disasters, you pointed out a possibility of disaster that is fundamentally personal like being away from your son. i had to take a step back and revisit the definition that i adhere to: ‘disasters occur when life sustaining social systems are threatened to the point of breakdown.’ there is both an aspect of vulnerability and an aspect of a breakdown of a life-sustaining social system. the hypothetical example that you gave embodied two fundamental aspects of what defines a disaster: you were considering a vulnerability to the loss of a loved one, and that could potentially cause a breakdown in your immediate social system as you are ultimately a part of a social system in the university where you work, in your nuclear family, in other aspects. you make up one part of a whole, and if you are exposed to a vulnerability such as a loss, how it affects you will also affect your own social system. it was, technically a disaster, but on a different angle that i would have not previously acknowledged before. this reinforces what you pointed out as a level of intimacy with the victims we tell their stories, and their stories prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 16 are made up of individual interpretations of disasters what they lose, how they are traumatised. the individual stories progress to a collective. 3. that point of questioning and being able to articulate an interpretation of a certain topic, can in fact, bring both participants of the discourse to accumulate new knowledge, new interpretations of existing knowledge, and a critical reflection of knowledge. our process also showed that despite varying levels of formal training in a certain discipline, one does not necessarily have to be merely at a receiving end just because she knows a little less about the said topic, or the other merely at the giving end just because she knows a little more about the said topic. both can come out of a discussion with new and renewed knowledge on the basis of active questioning and reflections that are undertaken equally by both participants. in our conversation, you emphasise ‘shared humanity’ as something that allows us to know about something amid differences. we *know*, no matter how different or levels of knowledge may be, because we are connected by that shared humanity. as a result of that shared humanity, we created a shared space where ‘(we) can allow ourselves to say what we know.’ i could not agree more. metaphorically, discourses such as what we currently have on knowing about disasters, take the form of constellations. each person is an embodiment of knowledge which was formed through various planned and accidental occurrences, much like stars are formed as a result of turbulences deep within clouds: ‘[these turbulences] give rise to knots with sufficient mass that gas and dust can begin to collapse under its own gravitational attraction. as the cloud collapses, the material at the centre begins to heat up [...], it is this hot core at the heart of a collapsing cloud that will one day become a star.’ ("stars," 2018) as individuals, we come out as autonomous persons that embody core knowledges. we know what we know, and we make sense of what we know because of our different formation processes. we come out differently, yet at our core, we have a shared attribute of humanity, which ultimately becomes a mechanism for us to create knowledge together. this process of *knowing* together allows us to build new meaning, renew meanings, which ultimately can form an understandable, recognizable pattern just like a constellation of stars. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 17 sophia: i looked up which stories i might have read during the time when yolanda struck. through an online search, i found the news article entitled typhoon haiyan: in hard-hit tacloban, children ripped from arms (stevens & hancocks, 2013). i think this article could have been one of the sources that i read around the time of the disaster. i then also found the need to ask myself if, as i had previously believed, there was no need for the media to exaggerate their news coverage of the disaster because of the already presumed gravity of its impact. i realised that i could have made incorrect interpretations from the news. embarrassingly, i assumed children’s arms had been ripped off from their bodies when what was really implied was that children have been taken away by the raging waters from their parents’ arms. the headline reads, ‘…children ripped from arms’ while a subheading within this article states ‘children torn from arms’. my misinterpretation could have been a mistranslation, considering english is my second language. or perhaps the authors’ use of torn and ripped deployed a desired effect on the reader who would have already been baffled and shocked because of the impact of the tragedy. the elision of the word parents (to whom the arms actually belong) creates the possibility of creating an image of children’s maimed bodies on the reader’s mind. furthermore, the headline itself is also maimed, leaving out details for either economy of words or economic gains – or perhaps both. as i might have read this headline years ago during an emotionally and socially turbulent time, my mental and emotional state during that time could also have contributed to its effects of its play on language. news headlines, as part of a larger discourse of corporate media competition, are complicit with games set in a stage of a global neoliberal agenda. in the arena of ‘global education,’ the notion of ‘games’ as metaphor is useful in describing processes of ranking in ‘olympic’ competitions between institutions characteristic of athletic sports events (stronach, 2010). news institutions are also subject to similar contests. this particular news article invests the reader’s emotion in order to get ahead in the global game. its writers had to appeal to a global audience; it had to deploy devices that would appeal to a more or less universal sentiment – that of the human empathy towards tragedy. perhaps such appeals to emotion motivate the separation of knowledge from affect in some academic circles, such as what bianca had earlier experienced. however such sanitary separation, aside from being unfeasible, perpetuates a conflation between feelings and prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 18 weakness (may, 1993 cited in shacklock, 1998). a view of subject involvement as an infestation of knowledge prevents discussions and debates about researcher or writer influence. rather, a more ethical view regarding universal truths should concern knowledge production wherein both the news reporter and the academic researcher participate as performative players engaged in a ‘global game’ (edwards & usher, 2008, p. 95). one of the ways educational researchers have tried to bring their playing “tactics” in view is to produce research as narratives, in which they reflexively engage with intersections between their own subjectivity and the process of research as embodied, contextual “knowing.” within this constellation of knowledge, we found that our shared social and class background prevented us from the type of knowing that disaster victims engaged with, and that we were trying to know about disasters “from a distance.” this socio-economic distance interacts with other distances – between various notions of the same concepts, and also between past and present selves. through this initial exploration we have come to view them as meaningful differences that are entangled with not only accessing, but also of producing what (we think) we know. references bohm, d. (1996). on dialogue. london: routledge. buchanan, i. (2007). deleuze and the internet. australian humanities review, 43, 1-19. deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. deterala, s., owen, a., su, f., bamber, p., & stronach, i. (2018). “hello central, give me doctor jazz”: auto/ethnographic improvisation as educational event in doctoral supervision. qualitative inquiry, 24(4), 248-259. doi:10.1177/1077800417728957 drabek, t. e., & macentire, d. a. (2003). emergent phenomena and the sociology of disaster: lessons, trends and opportunities from the research literature. disaster prevention and management: an international journal, 12(2), 97-112. ebert, t. l. (1986). the crisis of representation in cultural studies: reading postmodern texts. [critical angles: european views of contemporary american literature, marc chenetier]. american quarterly, 38(5), 894902. doi:10.2307/2712833 edwards, r., & usher, r. (2008). globalisation and pedagogy: space, place and identity. london: routledge. finding a filipino word for storm surge: 'daluyong' or 'humbak'? . (2013). retrieved from https://news.abscbn.com/focus/11/18/13/finding-filipino-word-storm-surge-daluyong-or-humbak fischer, m. m. j. (2011). a polyphonic nine canto "singspiel" after 25 years of "writing culture and anthropology as cultural critique". anthropologica, 53(2), 307-317. https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/11/18/13/finding-filipino-word-storm-surge-daluyong-or-humbak https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/11/18/13/finding-filipino-word-storm-surge-daluyong-or-humbak prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 19 lather, p. (2007, 2007). validity, qualitative. the blackwell encyclopedia of sociology. retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosv001 machine, & log. (2004). ashes of the wake. on lamb of god: ashes of the wake. new york: epic records. mazumdar, t. (2013). philippines typhoon: uk doctors speak from storm-hit country. retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24980472 oposa, t. (2013). filipino name for storm surge. retrieved from http://opinion.inquirer.net/66901/filipinoname-for-storm-surge rodolfo, k. s. (2013). call storm surges ‘silakbô’. retrieved from http://opinion.inquirer.net/68333/call-stormsurges-silakbo shacklock, g. s., john. (1998). behind the 'cleansing' of socially critical research accounts in being reflexive in critical educational research. new york: routledgefalmer. stars. (2018). retrieved from https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-andevolve stevens, a., & hancocks, p. (2013). typhoon haiyan: in hard-hit tacloban, children ripped from arms. retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/philippines-tacloban/index.html stronach, i. (2010). globalizing education, educating the local: how method made us mad. london: routledge. villar, e. b. (2018). purpose-driven improvisation during organizational shocks: case narrative of three critical organizations and typhoon haiyan. manuscript submitted for publication. villar, e. b., & miralles, f. (2015). exploring the micro-foundations of improvisations towards strategic performance in turbulent environments: a case of a disaster response organization. british academy of management conference proceedings. zagefka, h., noor, m., & brown, r. (2013). familiarity breeds compassion: knowledge of disaster areas and willingness to donate money to disaster victims. applied psychology: an international review, 62(4), 640654. i this is a form of public transport in the philippines, usually suvs. ii we turn to sources which have received lesser merits of credibility, as the original source cited by wikipedia (https://www.gov.ph/crisis-response/mga-paalala-ukol-sa-storm-surge/) is now inexistent, echoing the still unofficial and unnamed status of “storm surge” in visayan/philippine cultural knowledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosv001 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24980472 http://opinion.inquirer.net/66901/filipino-name-for-storm-surge http://opinion.inquirer.net/66901/filipino-name-for-storm-surge http://opinion.inquirer.net/68333/call-storm-surges-silakbo http://opinion.inquirer.net/68333/call-storm-surges-silakbo https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/philippines-tacloban/index.html prism journal doi:10.24377/prism.article667 prism early view (2023) doi:10.24377/prism.article667 1 © 2023 prism, issn: 2514-5347 the strands of the forest school implementation challenges: a literature review ziad f. dabaja1 1 université paris-est créteil, imager, creteil, france (ziad-fawaz.dabaja@u-pec.fr) received: 19/03/2022 accepted for publication: 25/04/2023 first published in early view: 16/06/2023 abstract the literature proposes that forest school, which is a form of outdoor and environmental education, can improve the children’s overall wellbeing. yet, the implementation of this promising and distinctive educational concept can be hindered by several barriers. in this paper, i draw on relevant resources to introduce the main obstacles to the implementation of forest school and the factors that could mitigate them. four criteria guided the selection of the resources: a) the source, type, and content of the paper, (b) the subject matter, (c) the publication date, and (d) the publication language. the present review of literature yielded five main forest school implementation challenges encompassing the (1) adults’ risk perceptions and attitudes associated with forest school outdoor activities; (2) meeting curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations; (3) cost and logistical difficulties; (4) finding an appropriate site and using the facilities, and (5) the administrative work. i then discuss these challenges based on relevant literature, present various mitigating factors, and introduce some implications of this review for research and practice. keywords: forest school; implementation; challenge; outdoor education; literature review 1. introduction forest school can be considered a form of outdoor and environmental education (knight, 2018; leather, 2018) through which children repeatedly visit a specific natural place for an extended time to engage in a multitude of outdoor activities. forest school concept was brought from the scandinavian context into the uk in 1993 by a group of staff from bridgwater college, somerset (maynard, 2007) before burgeoning across the world (knight, 2016). the systematic literature review by dabaja (2022a; 2022b) showed that forest school can help promote the children’s (1) social and cooperative skills; (2) physical skills; (3) self-confidence and self-esteem (4) learning performance and cognitive skills; (5) emotional and mental wellbeing; (6) risk management skills; and (7) environmental awareness and sense of belonging. this result aligns, to a great extent, with waite, bølling, and bentsen’s (2016) review of literature pertaining to english forest school and danish udeskole. yet, it appears that the implementation of forest school is hindered by many challenges. for instance, the same literature review conducted by waite et al. mailto:ziad-fawaz.dabaja@u-pec.fr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0002-8754 prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 2 early view (2016) pinpointed several forest school implementation barriers in the english context encompassing the cost of transportation and extra staff, covering the crowded curriculum, funding for outside providers to deliver outdoor sessions, and safety concerns. comparable findings were proposed by whincup, allin, and greer (2021), who explored the forest school implementation challenges faced by 12 primary school teacher-forest school leaders in the uk. in this paper, i systematically locate and select relevant resources, from the uk context and beyond, to present the forest school implementation challenges. i later tap into additional literature to introduce a set of factors and strategies that could mitigate these implementation challenges. 2. methodology in order to locate relevant forest school resources, i used scopus search engine and looked for the terms “forest school” or “forest schools” in the abstracts, keywords, and titles of all articles that were published between 2000 and 2020. i then applied the “subject area” filter by selecting resources pertaining to “social sciences”, “environmental science”, and “arts and humanities” to obtain a total of 96 documents. the same procedure was replicated using scholars portal search engine producing 47 results. thus, a total of 143 documents were generated from the initial searching phase. the selection criteria fink (2010) proposed 13 typical practical screening (i.e., inclusion and exclusion) criteria to guide the literature review searches. these suggested criteria were publication language, journal, author, setting, participants or subjects, program/intervention, research design, sampling, date of publication, date of data collection, duration of the data collection, content (topics, variables), and source of financial support. for the purpose of this review of literature, i employed four criteria to inform the selection of the forest school resources: (a) the source, type, and content of the paper, (b) the subject matter, (c) the publication date, and (d) the publication language. 1. the source, type, and content of the paper: only articles with primary data and published in academic journals were selected. other resources, such as literature reviews, discussion papers, and book chapters or book reviews were not considered. 2. the subject matter: in order to be selected, the article had to allude to challenges that could impact the implementation of forest school or similar outdoor nature-based programs that follow the same ethos but adopt different names (dabaja, 2022a; dabaja, 2022b). 3. the publication date: the resources published from january 2000 to december 2020 were considered. 4. the publication language: the included articles had to be disseminated in english regardless of their geographic areas. the selected material after the application of the selection criteria, the original number of 143 documents was reduced to 18 accessible resources proposing various forest school implementation challenges (see table 1). it is noteworthy to underscore that one of the selected articles was co-authored by the lead author. this article was included in the review after satisfying all the selection criteria. 3. findings and discussion the selected resources were thematically analysed both inductively and deductively (braun & clarke, 2006) to identify what the literature has proposed as challenges that could hinder the implementation of forest school and similar outdoor nature-based programs. in terms of the deductive analysis, i drew upon the literature review conducted by waite et al. (2016) who presented, among other findings, the barriers for implementing english forest school (efs) and danish udeskole (du). prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 3 early view table 1: an overview of the 18 selected resources * this article was located and included in the review before being issued as: harper, n. j., & obee, p. (2021). articulating outdoor risky play in early childhood education: voices of forest and nature school practitioners. journal of adventure education and outdoor learning, 21(2), 184-194. resources study purpose the context methodology data collection type of study participants boileau & dabaja (2020) exploring the nature of canadian forest school programs and how they are being implemented. canada online survey qualitative & quantitative (i.e., descriptive statistics) forest school educators button & wilde, 2019 exploring practitioners’ perspectives about risk when delivering forest school before and after engagement in five forest school sessions. uk focus-group & semistructured interviews qualitative forest school student practitioners & nursery practitioners connolly & haughton, 2017 “[i]nvestigat[ing] how risk perception amongst teachers within […] forest school, both shape and are shaped by their understandings of childhood, pedagogy and their own professional identity” (p. 105). uk focus-group interviews qualitative school teachers who were trained or were training to become forest school leaders elliot & krusekopf, 2018 exploring the different steps of creating and running a nature kindergarten. canada narrative qualitative the article authors & other key players in the program initiation process. elliott, 2015 exploring the feasibility of creating a forest school programme in a inner city school context. uk unstructured interviews & questionnaires qualitative primary school staff & students’ families harper & obee, 2020* “[e]xplor[ing] the [practitioners’] articulation of outdoor risky play, pedagogical practices pertaining to risk and how they navigate tensions between regulatory policies and idealized practice.” (p. 1). canada interview qualitative early childhood education forest school practitioners harris, 2017 “[i]nvestigat[ing] how forest school practitioners are facilitating learning at forest school” (p. 273). uk interviews qualitative forest school practitioners prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 4 early view table 1 (continued) resources study purpose the context methodology data collection type of study participants kemp, 2020 “[e]xplor[ing] the way in which forest school is enacted in english primary schools.” (p. 373). uk semi-structured interviews qualitative staff from rural primary schools kemp & pagden, 2019 exploring the school leaders’ reasons for considering the adoption of forest school. uk interviews qualitative senior leaders from rural primary schools masters & grogan, 2018 comparing seven nature kindergarten programmes in australia (i.e, 4) and new zealand (i.e., 3). australia & new zealand observations & semi-structured interviews qualitative teachers & adult helpers maynard, 2007 “[t]ell[ing] the story of an encounter between two early years teachers and two forest school workers” (p. 379). uk interviews qualitative forest school workers & early years school teachers o’brien & murray, 2007 a part of a larger project on the evaluation of forest school in england. uk observations & interviews qualitative teachers & parents pimlottwilson & coates, 2019 “[e]xplor[ing] the integration of formal and informal education [i.e, forest school], and the consequences for children's experiences of learning.” (p. 269). uk semi-structured interviews qualitative a forest school practitioner in one school, one classroom teacher who led forest school sessions in the other school, head teachers, & children at both primary schools ridgers, knowles, & sayers, 2012 “[e]xamin[ing] children’s perceptions, knowledge and experiences of play in the natural environment” before and after a 12-week forest school (p. 49). uk focus-group discussions qualitative primary school children savery et al., 2017 “[i]nvestigat[ing] perceptions of risk associated with the outdoors, held by children, their parents and practitioners, and whether accessing forest school impacts on these perceptions of risk” (p. 519). uk questionnaire & individual interviews mixedmethods parents, practitioners, & children prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 5 early view table 1 (continued) table 2: a comparison of the forest school implementation challenges based on two literature reviews. barriers associated with the implementation of english forest school (efs) and danish udeskole (du) by waite et al. (2016) forest school implementation challenge themes from the present literature review safety concerns (efs)/ difficult for teachers to find support for practice (du) adults’ risk perceptions and attitudes associated with forest school outdoor activities crowded curriculum (efs)/ crowded curriculum and academisation of schools (du) meeting curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations cost and logistical difficulties cost of transportation and extra staff (efs)/ travel time, cost of transportation and extra teachers (du) finding an appropriate site and using the facilities the administrative work funding for outside providers to deliver (efs)/ upgrading of teacher qualifications (du) resources study purpose the context methodology data collection type of study participants slade, lowery, & bland, 2013 evaluating the impact of the forest school experience. uk semi-structured interviews qualitative teacher, teaching assistants, the family and pastoral support officer, volunteers, the headteacher of the school, parents/carers, & pupils. swarbrick, eastwood, & tutton, 2004 “[e]xplor[ing] the relationship between selfesteem and successful learning through the forest school.” uk questionnaire qualitative adults working with children takriti, wright, alhosani, & schofield, 2020 describing the adaptation of a forest school into a desert school in the united arab emirates. united arab emirates (uae) narrative qualitative the forest school coordinator prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 6 early view in total, i identified five main forest school implementation challenges encompassing (1) the adults’ risk perceptions and attitudes associated with forest school outdoor activities, (2) meeting curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations, (3) cost and logistical difficulties, (4) finding an appropriate site and using the facilities, and (5) the administrative work. table 2 juxtaposes the implementation challenges that emerged from the present review of literature with the barriers proposed in waite et al. (2016). the risk perceptions as a strand of the forest school implementation challenges in this subsection, i introduce and discuss the risk perceptions and attitudes of the educators and parents/guardians that are associated with the outdoor activities. the risk perceptions and attitudes held by educators here, the term educators represents all adult individuals involved in the implementation and operation of forest school programs, such as school teachers and administration as well as forest school leaders/practitioners who run or work in private programs outside the formal school system. to begin with, the literature suggests that safety concerns related to risky outdoor activities (e.g., the use of sharp tools, building fire, running, and tree climbing) that might engender accidents are among the main challenges that could impede the implementation of forest school (boileau & dabaja, 2020; button & wilde, 2019; masters & grogan, 2018; maynard, 2007; savery et al., 2017; slade et al., 2013). one of the key studies on that topic was conducted by connolly and haughton (2017) who explored how risk perceptions of 37 forest school practitioners, including 27 qualified classroom teachers, “shape and are shaped by their own understandings of childhood, pedagogy, and their own professional identity” (p. 105). this research took place in south wales, uk. findings suggested that, due to the predominantly risk-averse society, several practitioners felt vulnerable and even at risk if any accident would happen to any of the children during forest school sessions. one of the participants stated, “[d]eep down i know that they will be fine but i can’t help worrying what if… at the end of the day i’m responsible for someone else’s child” (p. 115). this cultural sensitivity of children being at risk seemed to have compromised the practitioners’ motivation to implement one of the most prominent forest school ethos of providing children the opportunities to learn and develop while taking good risks. in consequences, some of the participants reported adapting their practices to conform to the dominant risk-averse discourse by implementing “no risk” strategy. one practitioner, for instance, banned tree climbing for safety reasons, while another reported that she needed to be able to see the children all the time (connolly & haughton, 2017). similar adaptations were communicated by boileau & dabaja (2020). this excessive caution could be triggered by the prevalent risk-averse culture where educators might fear blame (button & wilde, 2019) or even litigation (connolly & haughton, 2017) for any incident associated with outdoor activities. one forest school educators from a canadian context underscored the tension between policy and risky play by stating, the fact that we are so penalized as providers who are licensed if we have any incidents. it’s ridiculous… we all want to be a low-risk facility, but we are seeing that? we want to be allowing more risk play, but if we are being penalized for it, it doesn’t make sense for us to allow that to happen (harper & obee, 2020, p. 6). in response, the literature showcased some safety nets that appeared to mitigate the educators’ sense of vulnerability and concerns vis-à-vis the stakeholders’ potential reaction to an outdoor accident. one of these safety nets is the performance of risk assessment which appeared to comfort practitioners (harper & obee, 2020). this was emphasized in the statement of a uk nursery practitioner who advanced, accidents happen whether up in forest school, whether you’re in the nursery or whether in the garden, accidents happen all the time anyway, so it doesn’t really matter where we are as long as all the children you know have prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 7 early view been risk assessed (button & wilde, 2019, p. 30, emphasis added). comparably, a forest school practitioner from the same context communicated, “for me they [i.e., risk assessments] provide a safety net or a security blanket. yes, the whole thing is a bit over the top but i know that if something goes wrong, god forbid, then i will be protected (connolly & haughton, 2017, p. 117). learning the necessary skills, including how to perform risk assessments, are acquired through forest school training programs that also seem to play a significant role in shaping the educators’ outdoor practice. one practitioner commented, … without this [i.e., risk assessment] then i’d feel exposed you know, in front of parents, in front of the head [i.e., administration]. by undergoing this training and learning how to do the assessment allows me to convince those who are worried that it’s safe for the children. (connolly & haughton, 2017, p. 117, emphasis added). beside performing risk assessment, the literature proposed that engaging in forest school might shape the risk perceptions and attitudes of educators to become less risk-averse. for instance, button and wilde (2019) explored how engaging in five forest school sessions would impact the risk perceptions associated with outdoor activities of eleven college undergraduate students in early years education and four staff members from a nursery. the study was conducted in a rural english area at a forest school site and onsite nursery with thirty children aged 3 to 4 years. pre and post forest school sessions qualitative data were collected through two focus group (with the eleven undergraduate student practitioners) and eight individual interviews (with the four nursey practitioners). findings suggested that the practitioners’ “[p]erceived risks regarding play in the natural environment were significantly minimised after participation”, especially when participants were able to evidence the benefits of forest school sessions on the children’s well-being (p. 35). in other words, a balance between risk perceptions associated with outdoor settings and activities (e.g., tree climbing, campfire, tool use, irritating plantations) and benefits (e.g., improved social skills, creativity, imagination) was established (button & wilde, 2019). this echoes findings from maynard (2007) and savery et al. (2017). more specifically, the quantitative data analysis in the latter study showed that educators who had experienced forest school appeared to hold a lesser risk-averse attitude compared to those who had not. comparably, maynard’s (2007) accounts highlighted the way two classroom teachers, who originally held a risk-averse attitude, decided, as they further engaged in forest school, to loosen their control and give the children more opportunities to engage in hands-on outdoor activities “because children can get so much from it” as one of the teachers commented (p. 387). in fact, both classroom teachers communicated their willingness to develop the outdoor school site by building dens and a mud bath. in retrospect, research findings from button and wilde (2019), maynard (2007), and savery et al. (2017) provide some evidence that the learning experiences acquired through engaging in forest school have helped educators to lessen their pre-existing risk-averse attitude. the risk perceptions and attitudes held by parents/carers getting abducted, drowning in a big ditch, or disappearing in the woods represent some examples of what a group of english parents perceived as risks to which their children may be exposed in forest school (savery et al., 2017). comparable types of risks were those suggested by participant children, from the same english context, who reported that parental safety concerns, such as fears of abduction, heavy road traffic, and risk of injuries constrained them from playing outdoors (ridgers et al., 2012). other parental concerns associated with forest school practice were related to going outside in all weather conditions and its potential effects on the children’s health (elliott, 2015). even the conditions of the children’s clothes and their appearance were scrutinized and questioned by some parents (connolly & haughton, 2017). to gain a better understanding of the parents’ risk perceptions related to forest school, savery et al. prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 8 early view (2017) conducted a mixed methods study in which they, among other purposes, compared the risk perceptions of parents who had a previous experience in forest school and those who had not. the quantitative findings revealed no significant differences between both groups of parents (i.e., with and without forest school experience). however, on the qualitative side, most of the parents’ data included both risk attitudes; being risk-averse and permissive at the same time. for instance, one parent communicated, it was nice because i knew that it was, in the nicest possible way that they were penned in to a point…that meant they could just be free [i.e., a permissive attitude] in a safe controlled environment [i.e., a risk-averse attitude], if that makes sense (p. 8). in other words, parents wanted their children to have the opportunity to actively engage in outdoor tasks as long as risks are minimized in a controlled setting. furthermore, and similar to educators, some parents were mentioning risk assessment as a comforting element vis-à-vis outdoor risk. one of them advanced, “i’m quite happy for my children to be climbing trees, again as long as there has been risk assessments in place […..]” (savery et al., 2017, p. 526). in fact, one of the many reasons for which parents tended to report a lesser risk-averse attitude in their approach to forest school was their confidence in the “staff[’s] training and adherence to procedures, including risk assessments” (p. 526). this was noted in a parent’s statement, “i know that [the staff] would be in the woods beforehand and […] would have done the risk assessments and looked at anything that may have changed over the week and so i was confident that all the safety aspects have been covered” (p. 526). thus, undergoing forest school adequate training that includes learning how to perform necessary procedures, such as “risk assessments”, seems to not only comfort forest school educators to feel covered in case of an unforeseen accident, but also assure parents and encourage them to send their children knowing that qualified practitioners will be in charge (connolly & haughton, 2017). in addition to having skilful practitioners, involving parents in forest school was proposed to help “allay concerns [… they] may have about risks, the process of learning or exposure to inclement weather” (o’brien & murray, 2007) and motivate them to endorse the program (boileau & dabaja, 2020). in contrast, the parents’ lack of knowledge regarding the ethos and ideals of forest school, which is mainly caused by a scarcity of communication between forest school staff and the children’s parents (elliott, 2015; savery et al., 2017; slade et al., 2013), was perceived as a detrimental factor which may engender scepticism and justified concerns vis-a-vis the children’s safety. one misinformed parent even wondered, “[i]s your forest school a forest, or is it just a hut?” (elliott, 2015, p. 726). thus, numerous resources emphasized the significance of appropriately informing parents about the principles and characteristics of forest school, such as the associated benefits and potential risks (button & wilde, 2019), as well as getting them involved in the programs (button & wilde, 2019; elliott, 2015; harper & obee, 2020; o’brien & murray, 2007; savery et al., 2017; slade et al., 2013). the prominent impact of involving parents in forest school was apparent in the statement of one of them: i feel fully confident in all the activities that are taking place – there is just the right level of risk, the opportunities we’ve had to go to forest school, we’ve been talked through the element of risk and how the risk thing is quite important so i feel quite comfortable with it (savery et al., 2017, p. 525). to wrap up, the present review of literature showed that the educators’ and parents’ perceptions of risk related to forest school could hinder its implementation. comparable findings emerged from relevant literature (edwards-jones et al., 2018; rickinson et al., 2004; waite et al., 2016; whincup et al., 2021). at the same time, the literature proposed that experiencing forest school added to getting adequate training and performing risk assessment can help alleviate the concerns of both educators and parents when it comes to dealing with risky outdoor situations. additionally, there were several instances in the literature when educators reported adapting the practice of outdoor activities to mitigate risk prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 9 early view concerns and conform to the prevalent risk-averse culture, such as banning or restricting tree climbing (connolly & haughton, 2017) and “using ‘alternate ways to introduce skills, without introducing open blades, open fire, [and] large climbing obstacles.’ (boileau & dabaja, 2020, p. 233). being overly concerned about the children’s safety in forest school is not surprising because contemporary societies have been increasingly adopting a risk averse stance (schepers, 2017). this overprotective attitude is restricting the children’s access to the outdoors (gill, 2007; jenkins, 2006) and therefore denying them the developmental and health benefits that could be associated with outdoor risky play (gill, 2007; gleave, 2008). in fact, the exhaustive systematic review by brussoni et al. (2015) showed that engaging children in risky outdoor play can promote their health and active lifestyles. therefore, the authors highlighted “the need to encourage action to support children’s risky outdoor play opportunities” (p. 6424). the latter recommendation is consistent with harper’s (2017) who pushed toward a restructuring of risk conversation to generate shifts in risk-perception and perhaps re-establishing societal norms where it is acceptable for children to take reasonable and meaningful risks that are indispensable for a healthy development. this would encourage, according to the latter author, “[forest school] practitioners, teachers, and other child and youth care practitioners to allow for outdoor risky play in their programs without fear of litigation” (p. 329). meeting curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations another forest school key implementation challenge that emerged from the literature was dealing with pressures related to meeting the curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations as a part of the dominant achievement-based and test-driven school policies, especially for school teachers (e.g., elliot & krusekopf, 2018; kemp, 2020; pimlott-wilson & coates, 2019). this was clear in the statement of one uk classroom educators who commented on the integration of forest school in her teaching: at the end of the day we’re confined by the national curriculum and we have targets and we’ve got to focus on those . . . letting the child learn as it wants to . . . it’s a risk. and the parents want to see what the children have learnt (maynard, 2007, p. 387). comparably, a primary school headteacher from the same context communicated, i think parents perceive school as what have you learnt today, have you done any reading, have you done any writing, have you done any maths, and that seems to be the main thing … you're not tested on any other part of the curriculum… they associate the outdoors with playing, not working (pimlott-wilson & coates, 2019, p. 272) in fact, the reviewed corpus of work showcased an ongoing tension between the performance measurement-based mainstream traditional school discourse and the forest school philosophy that focuses on the holistic development of the students through an alternative child-centred hands-on learning environment (e.g., kemp, 2020; kemp & pagden, 2019; pimlott-wilson & coates, 2019; maynard, 2007). this tension left some educators torn between both discourses as it was advanced by a uk experienced primary classroom teacher: there are mounting pressures on children … and us really i guess to achieve … i mean to get results especially in english and maths. don’t get me wrong i know that’s an important part of education but there are other things that are important too outside the classroom. i think we need to be careful we don’t lose sight of these things too (connolly & haughton, 2017, p.114). to counter this challenge, relevant literature proposed that the learning which takes place in forest school could be used to help children improve their knowledge of many classroom-related subjects, such as language skills (e.g., kemp & pagden, 2019; harwood & collier, 2017), mathematics (mccree et al., 2018), plants and animals (e.g., boyd, 2019; murray & o’brien, 2005), and visual arts (murphy, 2018). more recently, whincup et al., (2021) underscored a set of pedagogical strategies for tracking and documenting learning progress. for prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 10 early view instance, some teacher-forest school leaders reported feeding back to either classroom teachers or parents about the activities that were performed during the forest school sessions. others communicated using learning journals “where staff and learners can add comments, drawings and photographs” and “digital portfolio apps to evidence progress, where children can reflect on previous sessions with teachers, adding comments to their photographs.” (p. 6). similar learning evidence techniques, that drew on taking photographs and creating pictograms and scrapbooks, were presented in edwards-jones, waite, and passy (2018) who examined the challenges associated with learning in natural environment (line) based on the narratives of 119 staff members from 12 schools in south-west england. it is noteworthy that, in contrast with opinions that perceived forest school as a potential vehicle to teach curriculum related mainstream subjects, other perspectives were more cautious when it came to blending these two learning environments. for example, a group of experienced forest school practitioners in harris (2017) “did not appear to see forest school as an opportunity for delivery of the national curriculum, even though potential links were identified (especially in science, geography, but also language and writing).” (p. 286). it was even suggested that “transposing curriculum requirements into an outdoor setting through directed activities with specified learning outcomes undermines the child-led ethos of forest school and its emphasis on open-ended learning” (pimlott-wilson & coates, 2019, p. 276). cost and logistical difficulties the cost of accessing a suitable site (e.g., securing transportation to and from the forest school sites) was underscored as a potential implementation challenge by kemp (2020), masters and grogan (2018), o’brien and murray (2007), and swarbrick et al. (2004). the latter two studies also alluded to financial difficulties related to recruiting the necessary staff to facilitate forest school sessions while boileau & dabaja (2020) mentioned the burden of training practitioners. this financial obstacle could be mitigated through building partnerships with local communities as it was suggested by forest school educators from the canadian context who emphasized the significance of collaborating with different stakeholders, including city officials and community members (boileau & dabaja, 2020). developing community partnerships was equally reported in other relevant literature as a means to implementing outdoor education programs and activities (dabaja, 2022c; gillis, 2016). in addition, teacher-forest school leaders from whincup et al. (2021) reported applying to external agencies for grants as well as organizing fundraising events to overcome the financial burden associated with the implementation of forest school. finding an appropriate site and using the facilities an additional implementation barrier was related to finding and securing a suitable site on which forest school session can take place (boileau & dabaja, 2020; kemp, 2020; masters & grogan, 2018). to counter this challenge, participants in edwards-jones et al. (2018) proposed investing in the development of green outdoor spaces on the school premises or at a close distance to facilitate line sessions. this suggestion was, in fact, put into practice by three schools located in south east england that developed forest school sites on the school grounds (kemp, 2020). although this strategy could be perceived as adequate, murray and o’brien (2005) emphasized that “it is woodlands (and their essentiall [sic] ‘wildness’) that has a particular advantage over other habitats as their structure and layout allows for greater adventure and mystery” providing a more conducive environment to children’s development (p. 74). even after securing the program’s site, educators in boileau & dabaja (2020) and masters and grogan (2018) reported barriers pertaining to accessing and using amenities on the site, such as outdoor “bathrooming or toileting”, moving equipment each day, having warm-up spaces and shelters in case of extreme weather. a set of barriers that could be overcome through financial support. prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 11 early view closely related to the effect of weather and climate conditions on the implementation of forest school (masters & grogan, 2018), takriti et al. (2020) showcased the challenges related to establishing an outdoor education project in the “inhospitable environments” of the desert in the united arab emirates where a forest school was adapted into a desert school (p. 52). the administrative work a group of forest school educators in canada suggested that dealing with official regulations, school board policies, childcare legislation about indoor space, and licensing protocols were some of the administrative challenges that might deter the implementation of these outdoor programs (boileau & dabaja, 2020). other issues were related to administrative work demands and obtaining appropriate insurance. on this last point, one forest school founder noted that it “took about four months at the beginning to find an insurance company willing to insure [the] school” (p. 233). before moving forward, it is worth noting that overcoming many of the introduced implementation challenges required from forest school educators to be perseverant, persistent, and patient (boileau & dabaja, 2020) as well as persuasive while advocating for the pedagogical value of forest school (whincup et al., 2021). 4. conclusion the literature proposes that engaging in forest school can improve the children’s (1) social and cooperative skills; (2) physical skills; (3) selfconfidence and self-esteem (4) learning performance and cognitive skills; (5) emotional and mental wellbeing; (6) risk management skills; and (7) environmental awareness and sense of belonging (dabaja, 2022a; dabaja, 2022b). still, to provide a clearer picture of the forest school experience, i drew on 18 resources to present the potential challenges that could hinder the implementation of this promising outdoor naturebased education program. these identified challenges included (a) risk perceptions related to outdoor activities; (b) meeting curriculum and stakeholders’ expectations, (c) funding and logistical difficulties, (d) finding an appropriate forest school site and using the facilities, and (e) the administrative work. several of these barriers mirror what is proposed in relevant literature (waite et al., 2016; whincup et al., 2021). still, one eminent aspect of the present review lies in introducing the various factors and strategies that can play a role in mitigating these implementation challenges. a limiting factor of this review is the use of the term “forest school(s)” to search for relevant articles. this could have restricted the selection of resources to those written in english, and therefore, affected the comprehensiveness of the review’s outcomes because other english and non-english speaking countries could be using different nomenclatures to refer to similar outdoor nature-based education (dabaja, 2022a). yet, findings from the present work shall enrich existing literature pertaining to the burgeoning practice of forest school and similar outdoor nature-based programs. more specifically, this review would be insightful for policymakers and individuals who aspire establishing and running forest school programs as well as for those who are planning to become forest school practitioners. in addition, the present review showed that the majority of the forest school resources came from the uk context. this necessitates conducting further research to investigate the various factors that might shape the implementation of forest school in other global settings, especially that contexts can shape the delivery of forest school programs (knight, 2018; leather, 2018; waite et al., 2016). these potential studies could, for instance, draw on the bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model as a potential “guiding theoretical framework to analyse the [forest school] approach to learning in the context it occurs” as it was proposed by murphy (2020, p. 197). finally, societies in this era are facing several challenges on many levels. for instance, contemporary children are increasingly adopting a sedentary lifestyle to become further disconnected from the outdoors (mullan, 2019), including natural prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 12 early view environments (louv, 2008). children’s sedentary behaviour, such as television viewing, using computers, playing video games, was associated with a poor health-related quality of life when it comes to their physical, psychological, and social wellbeing (wu et al., 2017). furthermore, the excessive reliance on fossil fuels has been playing a major role in global warming and climate change. this has led to devastating consequences, such as the frequent occurrence of extreme weather conditions (e.g., heatwaves, heavy precipitations, tropical cyclones), the melting of ice sheets, and the rise of sea levels (united nations, n.d.). forest school, however, can play a role in deterring these societal challenges through promoting the children’s physical, psychological, and social health in addition to their connection to nature and environmental awareness (dabaja, 2022a; dabaja, 2022b). hence, the present review of literature proves to be informative in the provision of effective forest school programs while representing a steppingstone for further investigation into the factors that could shape the implementation of this promising outdoor nature-based education concept on a global scale. 5. disclosure statement the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 6. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world’s largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 13 early view 7. references boileau, e. y. s., & dabaja, z. f. 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(2021). challenges and pedagogical conflicts for teacher-forest school leaders implementing forest school within the uk primary curriculum. education 3-13. doi: 10.1080/03004279.2021.1942948 https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2021.1942948 prism (2023) dabaja (2023) prism 2023 15 early view wu, x. y., han, l. h., zhang, j. h., luo, s., hu, j. w., sun, k. (2017). the influence of physical activity, sedentary behavior on health-related quality of life among the general population of children and adolescents: a systematic review. plos one, 12(11), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187668 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187668 prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 20 disability as a social construction: investigating how autism is represented in the mainstream media copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 20-38 lauren hamilton university centre at blackburn college lauren.hamilton@blackburn.ac.uk abstract this paper employs critical discourse analysis to examine the representation of autism within a small sample of mainstream newspaper articles. the paper concludes that media, as a communicative tool, has enormous cultural power whereby the portrayal of autism as a disability is predicated on notions of normality and underpinned by ableist ideology. such promotion of normalcy and disability in general can serve to generate and sustain disabling barriers and oppression. this hegemonic practice therefore produces a replicative process that is detrimental to the production of social justice and equality within contemporary society and culture. 1. introduction previous enquiries and debates within the field of disability studies suggest that societal perceptions of disabled people are formed and perpetuated through the media (barnes, 1992) and often contextualised within a medical deficit model thereby resulting in a critical avoidance that spans across society in a self-fulfilling process of fear and ignorance. similarly, existing research within the field of disability studies, particularly the work of hodkinson(2007), shows that historical frameworks have failed to both capture and reflect the experience and voice of both disabled and autistic people, failing to acknowledge and recognise dominant power structures or relations within contemporary society, therefore reinforcing segregation and prejudice within a continuous cycle of deprivation and dependency. as such this paper aims to critically examine the social construction of disability prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 21 within contemporary society, exploring how autism as a cultural concept is represented within mainstream media texts. equally, the paper aims to assess the view that misrepresentations of autism within contemporary media form the foundation of negative attitudes and beliefs (solis, 2004). this is where prejudicial stereotypes of autistic people become absorbed into the public and political consciousness (kitchin, 2010), an oppressive discourse that serves to both reproduce and reinforce social injustice and segregation by abetting cultural inequalities. 1.1 cultural representations of disability the work of barnes (1993, 1997, 2003) and griffiths (2001) highlights how we are constantly subjected to negative, often stereotypical representations of disability as a tragedy to be pitied. it is this ableist representation of disabled people preserved within the media that consequently shapes a society’s understanding of, and attitudes towards, disability. this is where contemporary media, used as a communicative tool, uses disability to play on individual emotions (schalk, 2016), to either evoke fear (of a villain role), or to exploit sympathy in order to raise money. this imagery is not only negative, and impairment focused (aligned with the hegemonic medical model of disability), but also provides a distorted, misrepresentation of autism and disability in general, serving to maintain and reproduce a dominant and hegemonic societal hierarchy. it is this prevailing orthodoxy of social oppression (lang, 2001) and segregation which both produces and reinforces disabling stereotypes and prejudice, an ideology which then becomes absorbed as a social value, rooted within prevailing societal expectations and mistakenly viewed and recognised as a collective cultural truth or fact. equally, these negative reinforced interpretations, of prejudgment, towards disabled people, an enforced classification framework, leads to the continued reinforcement of a destructive cultural stigma (augoustinos and reynolds, 2001) and hostility, framing disability as an inferior category. as such, this destructive imagery (hosey, 2009, 2010) enforced within a culture, and reproduced within the media, not only has detrimental, long term effects on a society’s attitudes towards disability, a process of socialisation, but also indicates that autistic people are not given equal rights, a cultural intolerance and social preference which reinforces and generates profound social barriers of cultural isolation and exclusion. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 22 similarly, cameron (2014) and goffman’s (1963) work notes that media and societal representations of disabled and autistic people are often impairment specific, centralised around what jones and harwood (2009) term a “deficit perspective.” the significance of this stated authority and control, exercised through dominant normative values and oppressive representations of disabled people, subsequently equates to a ‘social imperative’ that exaggerates a disabled person’s depiction as other, a form of social or cultural death (waltz, 2007) whereby disabled people are portrayed and stigmatised as sub-human and therefore deficient or incompetent. it is this leading medical binary which suggests that disabled people are culturally rejected due to their failure to meet normative social standards, therefore suggesting that disabled people are systematically placed outside the range of what is culturally accepted as normal. as a result, this damaging labelling theory advocated by society and the media, not only dehumanises and objectifies autistic people by centralising an individual’s personal limitation, their perceived deficit, but also suggests that there is a need for improvement. this in turn systematically suggests that autistic people have to change to fit into society by conveying assumptions of failure, a leading and discriminatory framework within contemporary culture which views autistic people as a ‘comparable group’ (huws and jones, 2010) within society, a capitalist discourse reproduced by the disability business. consequently, a capitalist society and culture becomes organised upon cultural interpretations of impairments, a process that guarantees autistic people’s social isolation from mainstream culture. organisations or institutions, such as the media, often run by non-disabled and defined by ‘modes of production’ (fritsch, 2004), operate as a business, raising money by exploiting sympathy based on the portrayal that disabled people, including autistic people, are reliant on those who are viewed as able-bodied. it this cycle of capitalism (oliver, 1990), reproduced within culture, which could be said to exclude and exploit autistic people by suggesting that the inclusion of disabled and autistic people has an economic base. as such, this cultural and political exploitation of disabled people, formed through public opinion and facilitated by the media, not only allows society to avoid its obligation to remove social barriers, used as a scapegoat (shakespeare, 1994, 2002) for a damaging and disabling society, but also implies that disabled and autistic people have an inability, reinforced via an oppressive social hierarchy which highlights the bi-directional nature of segregation (bronfenbrenner, 1979). it prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 23 is this two-way or dual process related to inclusion, impacted by a variety of external influences, such as media, or other environmental systems which affects the majority. the media encourage certain demeaning ideals of disabled people in an attempt to rationalise disability, dehumanising and stigmatising (sullivan, 2011) autistic people in order to provide false generalisations that become engrained within a culture. this labelling cycle reinforces and encourages ableist behaviours that place those with a disability, including autistic people, on the fringe of a society, outside the spectrum of the ‘normal’ (haller et al, 2006). equally this ideology manifested with a notion of inclusion-ism (mitchell et al, 2014), a false or tokenistic sense of inclusion reproduced in current culture and media, may consequently result in environments or conditions where disabled people feel obliged to adhere to simplified, one-dimensional portrayals of disability. this is consolidated within society and media, whereby in order to feel like a valued member of a community, an environment of false consciousness must be created (perepa, 2013) and with it a mistaken belief that society and culture is just and fair. 1.2 autism as a deficit to be avoided popular perceptions of autistic people within the media and society are often constructed around pervasive historical superstitions, myths and beliefs surrounding autism and disability. waltz (2010) and sinclair’s (1993) work suggests that this is where the predominant narratives of autism, a disability viewed as an appendage, centralise around triumph over adversity, or focus on autistic people as objects of pity, evil or ridicule in order to aid in the cultural construction of power relationships. equally, it is this notion of liminality, used to justify the social status or position of disabled people, which consequently (re)enforces simplified, onedimensional metaphoric depictions of autistic people as marginal or inadequate bodies. this emphasises a politics of resentment which not only systematically portrays autism solely as a medical condition or deficit in need of a cure, but also highlights a socio capitalist process and categorical distancing. the ‘dilemma of difference’, coined by terzi (2005, 2010), underpins a complex system of social constrains and norms imposed on disabled people by a discriminatory society and a structured classification system. this is where the embodiment of these discriminative social and economic relations within an ideological hegemony, defined by capitalist relations, leads prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 24 to the exclusion and alienation of autistic people within capitalist societies, ensuring a prejudicial culture in which diversity is undervalued. similarly, society and the media portray and stereotype autistic people as curios, perceiving disability as a curiosity to be explored. this perspective encourages non-disabled people to consider impairment imagery as an opportunity for potential voyeurism, ensuring a critical avoidance and autistic peoples’ continued perception as an objectified other, as nonhuman, or inferior. these oppressive portrayals of disability undermine the notion that disabled and autistic people can be respected and valued members of society and therefore significantly lower the self-worth of the individual. this highlights a categorical dehumanising process where disability, as a notion, becomes solely understood as a deformity or anomaly, a manifestation of physical weakness and limitation: a hegemonic and disabling discourse which centralises extreme bodily abnormality and perceived difference, something which treats disability and autistic people as a spectacle (slater, 2013) and is paradoxically pervasive within a society. consequently, autistic people become scapegoats for ‘social anxieties’ of ruptured identity and vulnerability, viewed as a comparable group or discursive category within society. it is this underlying focus on a deficit model perspective which provides little consideration to the barriers, discrimination, negative images and lack of opportunity that shape autistic people’s experience, objectifying disabled people through a reinforced perpetual state of un-belonging within manifestations of abnormality and despair. 2. methodology 2.1 mainstream media and newspapers over a three-month period, from december 2016 – february 2017, the paper employed critical discourse analysis to explore media coverage of autism within one mainstream broadsheet newspaper: the guardian and two tabloid newspapers: the sun and the daily mail, assessing all relevant articles using the research methods below. the search was carried out on the newspapers in order to recognise, evaluate and critically compare current dominant, prevailing discourses and ideologies (hosey, 2009) of autism, which are expressive of different readerships and political profiles (wilkinson and mcgill, 2008) in the united kingdom. the proquest news stand and infotrac online database, a catalogue or record of international, national and regional newspapers, was employed to prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 25 retrospectively search for all relevant electronic newspaper articles comprising of the search terms ‘autistic’ or ‘autism’ in the specified months. each article was then analysed to effectively and systematically disregard any articles which did not mention or specifically refer to autism, or which were not newspaper articles, for example adverts or transcriptions. the researcher included all articles that contained autism coverage, excluding any stories that had been repeated in different publications of the same newspaper, public or social statements, advertisements for study enrolments, cinema listings and letters to the editors. all outstanding articles were then manually inputted into a secure database. all articles were then read independently and autonomously by the researcher and coded as either ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ in overall focus, and then further coded (barton, 2006) into dominant themes. 2.2 framework a qualitative approach, specifically critical discourse analysis (cda), is used to examine the use of the medical model in the mainstream press. as such the paper seeks to decode the hegemonic ideologies which underpin contemporary cultural assumptions surrounding the nature of knowledge and societal perceptions of complex social and physical environments. it aims to investigate whether disability and autism are socially constructed through an inability to value diversity. in particular, a dialectical-relational approach to cda, developed by fairclough (1989), was employed throughout to support enquiry on the basis that specific frameworks or discourses, for example news reports, are systematically framed and organised in a way that corresponds to prevailing societal or cultural structures and practices. serving as a methodological tool, cda is effective in examining and decoding dominant power relationships and cultural assumptions between ruling class ideologies and social practice. i use the term ‘discourse’ in various senses: as a three-dimensional concept which involves texts (the objects of linguistic analysis), discourse practices (the production, distribution and consumption of texts) and social practices (the power relations, ideologues and hegemonic struggles that discourses reproduce, challenge or restructure). this interplay between text, discourse and historical context enables the researcher to understand the causality of oppression along with the broader reality of how both disability and autism as concepts are constructed and experienced. focusing on the incorporation of textual analysis allows the researcher to study the ‘context and structure’ (oliver, 2002) of indirect messages prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 26 which may be embedded within the text, allowing the researcher to challenge the hegemonic ideals (kress, 2012) of disability that are present within newspaper articles. similarly, textual analysis has the potential to centralise dominant representations of autistic people, again allowing the researcher to outline autism and disability as a social construction rather than a deficit to be avoided or cured. cda permits the researcher to gain a profound understanding of the hidden agents within a text, centralising the bi directionality (bronfenbrenner, 1979), or relationships between text and society through critical consideration of how texts are produced and structured, a process which allows the researcher to uncover how autism as a medical deficit is perpetuated within mainstream media and contemporary culture. this methodology centralises the connection between societal attitudes and text (creswell, 2013), producing codes which reflect common themes and traits within the research, a thematic approach which enables the researcher to determine how autism as a social construction is represented and portrayed within culture, highlighting dominant power relations and broader themes within society such as normality and societal attitudes. 3. analysis in total, 31 ‘autism’ or ‘autistic’ related articles were accessed over a three-month period (fig. 1). the results suggest an increase in media coverage over the three-month period. as previously stated, the articles were coded or identified as predominantly either ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ (fig. 2). within the three months, 21 ‘negative’ articles outnumbered the 9 ‘positive’ articles, highlighting a prevalence of newspaper articles focusing on negative or derogatory stories. as a whole, ‘positive’ articles primarily focused on financial or physical capitals or resources, for example the continued donation of funds to autism research or treatment or on an individual’s ‘triumph over adversity’ (barnes, 1997). an example includes ‘how disney gave voice to a boy with autism’ (saskia, 2016), published in the guardian. similarly, ‘negative’ articles were often centralised around the perceived or subjective complications or perceived problems of living with an autistic child, underlining a medical model framework, or about parents, carers or family that could not cope and abandoned or injured their autistic child. for example, see ‘autistic’s anguish’ (miller, 2017), published in the sun. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 27 3.1 absent voices the voice of autistic people within media coverage is predominantly silenced and overlooked with newspaper articles under-representing autistic people by primarily focusing on second-hand accounts of autism as a perceived deficit or medical condition. for example: people would see me as being the problem… i began to seek a medical diagnosis. (hill, 2017, the guardian online) the analysis found that news or media coverage generally stemmed from the perspectives or viewpoints of academics, journalists, parents and health care or medical professionals (fig. 3), rather from autistic people themselves. this approach not only centralises a medical model binary but also fails to recognise the complexity and diversity, or personal experience, of an individual’s personality and character (hyun, 2012). similarly, the evaluation unexpectedly highlighted a binary juxtaposition where autistic adults were rarely referred to, therefore presenting autism as a medical condition primarily affecting children. this media preference reinforces a symbolic annihilation, or under-representation, of minority groups, where autistic people, and people with perceived disabilities, are systematically excluded from mainstream media representation within significant cultural constructions, denying their status as equal humans and rendering them voiceless. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 28 the concept of symbolic annihilation leads to a cultural preference (hehir, 2010) that reflects and maintains the hegemonic control of powerful elite, or ableist members of society, suggesting that prejudice and discrimination is replicated and reproduced through the media. as a result, the opinions and attitudes of central or salient groups (those who are viewed as able-bodied) hold other marginalised groups (for example, disabled or autistic people) in subordination (ho, 2004), where they are viewed as sub-human, reinforcing a prevalent cultural hierarchy which systematically ensures social injustices. it is this underrepresentation of autistic people’s voice and expression within both media coverage and society that enables and facilitates the reiteration of negative stereotypes. it highlights a politics of resentment, a socio-cultural view of unequal power relations and predominant orthodoxy of social oppression underpinned by newsworthiness which prevents equal opportunity for independence and autonomy. this, in turn, suggests that newspapers and contemporary media converge systematically frame and structure autism in a way that captures and maintains a society’s dominant attitudes and beliefs. for example: believing [autism] restricted his development and contributed to his [social] isolation. (baron, 2016, the guardian online) i threw myself into “curing” my son. (demby, 2016, the guardian online) these medicalised accounts of autism as a deficit, or insufficiency (abrams and hogg, 2011), fail to capture and reflect experience of autism and disability from the knowledge or perspective of an autistic or disabled person by taking an individualised perspective, instead focusing on disability as a personal misfortune. this focus fails to acknowledge the struggles and disabling barriers within society, highlighting autism as a medical or personal issue rather than a political or social one. as a result, the media supports the reproduction of inequalities within a society by providing a distorted cultural lens through which to examine autism, prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 29 leading to the continual suppression and disempowerment (swain et al, 2004) of autistic people, who then become stigmatised. 3.2 autism as a burden the media often portrays autism in a standardised and homogenised (gold and richards, 2012) way that fails to recognise and value human diversity. as a result, autistic people are often overlooked, depersonalised and reduced to one-dimensional characters which centralises the medical condition, or perceived impairment, reinforcing and creating prejudicial attitudinal barriers and resulting in social exclusion. the analysis revealed underpinning dominant dualist discourses, previously discussed by sinclair (1993), that portrayed autism as both an appendage, or an affiliation, of suffering and as autistic people being vulnerable and dependent. it is this categorisation process, or grouping of autistic people, which serves to systematically ignore each individual’s uniqueness by reinforcing a lowered expectation. this in turn systematically undermines autistic people’s personhood, centralising a standardised group who are identified solely by a medical condition, perceived as a neurological minority. for example: ‘owen had so many alarming behaviours… although luckily he was never violent or aggressive,’ says cornelia, ‘i feared that he would never speak, that we would be taking care of him for his entire life.’ (baron, 2016, the guardian online) devoted themselves to exploring every therapy on offer… the family assembled a team of specialists to support them and give advice. (baron, 2016, the guardian online) these discourses, disseminated in mainstream and contemporary media, also present a discriminatory dual stereotype (rosenhan, 1973) of autistic people being either out of control, violent and aggressive individuals who trigger stress or trauma to their families and carers, perceived as an unsolicited burden (dudley-marling, 2004) to society, or as unhappy, unloved and poorly treated. for example: autism makes him a difficult person to deal with. (hill, 2016, the guardian online) when he was a child… i lived with this burden. (baron, 2016, the guardian online) prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 30 such labels replicated within the media serve to distinguish autistic people from the rest of society, encouraging and centralising a dilemma of difference, or false generalisation, that reflects dominant discriminatory ideologies within mainstream culture by suggesting that autistic people are victims of their condition, a reinforced negative social-emotional impact or affliction of suffering (benson and keyes, 2013). this systematic process of marginalisation and ostracism underpins the bi-directional, or reciprocal, nature of segregation and exclusion whereby individual and cultural perceptions of autistic people are impacted by a variety of external influences, or environmental systems, such as the media. the analysis therefore highlights how the media advocates for particular patronising ideals of autistic people in an attempt to validate and rationalise political and economic discrimination or social rejection. this predominant crisis of misrepresentation of autistic people, based on notions of normality and collectively accepted values and beliefs, encourages social stigma and polarisation of a symbolic cultural order (ellen, 2004), suggesting that multi-dimensional processes of isolation are driven by unequal power relationships which obscure the need for change. it is this fortified assumption and mistaken belief that autistic people are helpless (gelh, 2010) and dependent, defined in terms of their perceived limitations, which demonstrates the dominance of ‘normative’ (coogan and mallet, 2013) medical notions of autism. as such, it is this cultural intolerance and prejudice which consequently assumes that autistic people want to be normal, indicative of how this dominance of the medical model is likely to encourage medical stereotypes as a problem waiting to be cured, where autistic people have to change to be accepted and valued within society. 3.3 sensationalising, falsification and exploitation of a label centralising a misrepresentation framework, the analysis of the media coverage found that newspaper articles frequently alluded or referred to an individual’s perceived demonstration of particular traits or behaviours that could potentially be indicative of autism, despite the absence of a medical diagnosis. these negative misconceptions as highlighted by cameron (2011) and sullivan (2014), centre around a medical model binary and have the potential to perpetuate a distorted or biased reality, centralising a sensationalised, inaccurate and mistaken stereotype of autistic people based on false generalisations of a perceived disability. for example: prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 31 he was unresponsive… we worried about his future. (boseley, 2016, the sun online) lack of empathy with other’s emotions. (pemberton, 2017, the sun online) these limited portrayals of autism as medical deficit, where autistic people are predominantly portrayed in a standardised and homogenised way, fails to recognise human diversity placing autism within an umbrella term, or a single category of impairment. as a consequence, the socially constructed label of autism reinforces limited and dominant negative portrayals of autistic people. consequently, it is this cultural construct of autism, reinforced within the media and upheld within contemporary culture and prejudicial social schemas, which serves as a scapegoat, used to validate (cole, 2008, 2011) and justify behaviours that appear to deviate from socially constructed norms and expectations. for example: autistic people struggle with social interaction. (pemberton, 2017, the sun online) such derogatory terminology predominantly used within the media, and replicated within a society, reinforce an epidemic framework, or medical view, which fails to take into account individual experiences, viewing autism exclusively as a medical disorder. this stereotypical and discriminatory media framing highlights a hierarchy of preference where oppressive labels reinforced within society act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. here, autistic people subconsciously internalise prejudiced labels and language used analytically to inculcate them as passive recipients, reinforcing an oppressive discourse that serves to exploit and marginalise them. in such instances autism, as a concept, is systematically and methodically portrayed as a commoditised (terzi, 2010) impairment label and primarily transformed into a commercial enterprise (snyder and mitchell, 2005). this dominant capitalist binary is where the media, operating as a business, is predominantly run by able-bodied people, thus not considered to be disabled. hence media coverage is primarily impairment-specific, targeting its resources at autistic or disabled people in order to fix or cure them, serving as an advocate for medical intervention. as a result, autism, as a socially constructed label, is exploited and manipulated for financial purposes, used as an exemplar within a capitalist market to justify segregation and exclusion. for example: marketplace for autism treatment. (mitchel, 2016, the guardian online) prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 32 early diagnosis and intervention is one of the major goals of autism research… we are on the brink of a new era in autism diagnostics. (brock, 2017, the guardian online) the hope is for early intervention before the age of two. (sample, 2017, the guardian online) the depersonalising process where segregation is founded on irrelevant medical labels, suggests that it is has an economic base (michael, 1990), a process grounded in misinformed representations of autistic people. this systematic process of oppression and segregation in turn underlines and upholds a hierarchal structure of unequal power relations by reinforcing a prejudiced cultural lens which shapes a society’s perceptions of autistic people, where disability, discrimination and prejudice is systematically reproduced by the disability business. as a result, this marketisation process fails to recognise external barriers (hodkinson, 2010) and oppressive social relationships within society, failing to recognise that autism, as a cultural concept, is not a possession or attribute of an individual but is, in fact, a different way of being which should be universally celebrated. 4. conclusion it is evident that the media has enormous cultural power, used as a communicative tool to uphold and reproduce hegemonic societal ideals and dominant cultural norms. this paper found that the media primarily promoted a leading binary that is primarily aligned with the medical or individualistic (wendell, 2001) model of disability, an oppressive framework underpinned by prejudice and discriminatory terminology and language that both justifies and reinforces social stigma and marginalisation. as a result, autism was predominantly presented or stereotyped in a homogenised way that failed to both acknowledge and recognise human diversity and autistic people’s rights within the neuro-diversity movement. this oppressive labelling process prevents interdependence and equality by continuously failing to recognise that autism, as a concept, is not a deficiency to be fixed or cured but in fact a difference to be respected and celebrated. it is evident within the research that this perpetual continuation of a medical and derogatory labelling process, replicated within the media, primarily uses and manipulates the autism marker as a scapegoat in order to validate or justify behaviours that appear to deviate from prevailing social norms and expectations. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 33 in addition, the paper emphasises the dominance and repercussions of the medical model of disability within contemporary culture and wider society. it serves to reinforce negative cultural values and expectations through cultural representations such as media, labelling and normalcy. this negative reinforcement produces a negative social or scientific lens that ensures segregation and exclusion, preventing universal inclusion and equality. it is this prevailing concept of inequality, or cultural hierarchy of unequal power relations, based on a cultural dichotomy (sullivan, 2011) surrounding notions of normality, which serves to reinforce disabling barriers underpinned and maintained by prejudice and ableist stereotypes within the media and society. autism, as a concept, is principally and systematically viewed by the media as inferior and helpless, perceived exclusively as a medical limitation or deficit, and therefore dependent or socially undesirable, resulting in perpetual societal hostility. equally, it is this structured classification system which continuously problematises autism and disability through dominant cultural representations in the media, a prevailing prejudiced discourse supported and maintained by privileged social groups (timmi and radcliffe, 2005) such as medical professionals and the able-bodied. this results in incessant cultural discrimination, a lowered expectation within a systematic process that fails to take into account individual capabilities and choices of autistic and disabled people. equally, the enforced application of social ontology and emphasis on a social comparative discourse, or classification system, ensures the continuation of common culture within prevailing discriminatory societal hierarchies leading to the reproduction of the status quo. therefore, autism, as a social concept or cultural label, is culturally employed and constructed as a source of exploitation rather than liberation, as it is used and employed to reproduce current social relationships. in order to promote an egalitarian culture, a society needs to first challenge prevailing assumptions upon which dominant definitions of disability exist, and broaden perspectives on the experiences and voices of disabled and autistic people, weaving disabled people back into the fabric of society. a culture needs to allow for a social constructivist perspective which recognises the disability identity as a symbolic description of how individuals are perceived, treated and integrated within culture, viewing the norm of ability as arbitrary (michael, 1990) and disability as inseparable from other forms of oppression. it is this recognition of disability prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 34 as a socially constructed phenomenon which will aid in redefining disability in terms of a disabling environment and classification system, realigning disabled people as individuals with equal rights by enhancing awareness and understanding of the fabrication, misrepresentation and social production of disability within prevailing culture. acknowledgments the author would like to acknowledge irene rose for her supervision of the undergraduate dissertation from which this article was adapted and core members of the centre for culture and disability studies at liverpool hope university. references abberley, p. 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(2001) unhealthy disabled: treating chronic illness as disabilities. hypatia, 16 (4), 17-33. prism journal prism (2022) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 1 © 2022 prism, issn: 2514-5347 leaving the chasm behind? autoethnography, creativity and the search for identity in academia peter atherton school of education, liverpool john moores university, uk (p.f.atherton@ljmu.ac.uk) received: 19/01/2022 accepted for publication: 14/02/2022 published: 04/08/2022 abstract this paper examines visual narratology as a way of presenting qualitative primary data. the paper is an autoethnographic study with the overall goal of helping educators understand their digital literacies in a time of uncertainty and flux. the researcher deployed thematic analysis as the organising methodological framework. this performative autoethnographic method provided creative freedom and the satisfaction of a renewed perspective for the author (jay and johnson 2002). this primary qualitative data was given legitimacy and structure by the use of thematic analysis as a methodology. the findings support bochner’s (1994) idea that social science research can benefit from deliberately value-laden stories alongside empirical data and theories. the findings also developed the author’s previous autoethnographic paper, which drew on his own social media posts as qualitative and quantitative data atherton (2020b). keywords: autoethnography; thematic analysis; visual narratology; edtech; initial teacher education 1. introduction, background & structure of the paper autoethnography sits at a crossroads between the self, the culture and data analysis (ellis, adams and bochner, 2011). the paper uses reflexive thematic analysis as a research methodology to interrogate the primary data (braun and clarke, 2019). the piece is essentially reflective practice from a teacher educator, based on qualitative evidence (pinner, 2018). a qualitative method of social research, authethnography can take on hybrid forms, for example by combining narrative writing with more traditional research methods. the author here is using creative imaging to help him find a voice. he is also aware of the need to produce a piece of credible social research that could be of value to the wider academic context. the paper explored the challenges of locating autoethnographic work within a body of literature that is in a state of flux. the reasons for this are that autoethnography is a relatively novel method of social research and its definitions can be fluid this is further problematized by the blurring of the distinctions between researcher and participant (eldridge, 2012). autoethnography is contested and contentious (allen-collinson and hockey, 2008). there are sometimes perceptions of a lack of https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402212 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:p.f.atherton@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3258-0436 prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 2 early view intellectual rigour; bias and subjectivity are occupational hazards (hayano, 1979; ellis and bochner, 2000; le roux, 2017). the paper that preceded this one (author, 2020b) used narrative writing and twitter analytics as data. this is an autoethnographic paper, however, not an autobiography. i will start, however, with some context, which is autobiographical and in the first person. the extract below explains the autobiographical context behind this study’s visual narratology (hunter, 2020). the circumstances described below have changed significantly for the better since the time of writing: how i define myself is similarly complex and has sometimes changed from one day to the next. i am currently an author, a lecturer a researcher; a personal tutor, a teacher educator; an edtech expert; a podcaster, a blogger, a vlogger. i have, until very recently been a social media and education consultant, a web designer, an events-organiser, a community expert, a business owner, a manager, and a quality officer. author (2020b. pp48). in some ways, my qualitative inquiry was akin to the work of an anthropologist, whose status is a curious outsider (sampson, 2004). though autobiographical detail may be of limited value, the combination of stories and autoethnographic research methods is intended to resonate with the experiences of others; the addition of theory adds the necessary objectivity (anderson, 2006; chang, 2009, cited in holman jones, adams and ellis, 2016; author, 2020b). i had been solely a teacher for many years. i have experienced long periods of fulfilment and relatively short periods of uncertainty, even toxicity. as i made the long transition from teacher to academic, there have been many challenges. one such challenge has been in navigating the often exciting but sometimes choppy waters of being a portfolio careerist. another has been in terms of fusing an increasingly diverse skill set into a coherent whole. at the heart of these tensions is the issue of digital literacy, or literacies. since i started writing about educational technology (or edtech). i have expressed a deep ambivalence: evangelical about edtech on one hand, agnostic on the other (clark, 2020; author, 2018a). at the same time, i have become passionate about the disconnect between students’ digital skills, their access to technology in school and what is required to thrive in employment. i have relished building my digital literacy and helping others develop theirs but have always felt like an english teacher at heart. it is these tensions that have driven my practitioner writing and research. the paper uses multimedia images as primary data (figures a-e) to illuminate the ideas explored in the literature. the images help create a visual narratology as part of the visual autoethnography (hunter, 2020). the paper will follow the traditional structure of abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, discussion and analysis and conclusions and further research. the visual narratology develops from that of hunter (2020); the images, captions and graphics served as qualitative data and develop the mock novel and analysis of twitter data from author (2020b). 2. theoretical objectives of the paper the purpose of exploring this data is to create knowledge grounded in human experience. in doing so, the author may explore the reflexive self, in which an internal dialogue positions them as both subject and object (frank falk and miller, 1998 p153; sandelowski, 2004, cited in nowell, norris, white and moules, 2017; gubrium and holstein, 1998; ellis and bochner, 2011). the mock novel in author (2020b) was an account of real experiences but aspired to be transformative (morrow, 2005; mcilveen, 2008). the visual narratology in this paper (hunter, 2020) was informed by a need to make sense of my diverse skillset as an emerging academic and portfolio careerist. my research interest concerns the educational technology that we use, how it helps people learn and how it works (author, 2020b). a supplementary objective of the work will be to begin to consider how autoethnography could help others understand the importance of exploring their own creativity in order to create pieces of social research. i will attempt to communicate the duality of my experiences through the visual narratology (hunter, 2020). the narrative writing explored in prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 3 early view author (2020b) expressed this duality by heading the narrative writing as ‘day x’ and ‘day y’. ‘day x’ expressed the elation, hope and exhilaration associated with working as a portfolio careerist. on ‘day y’, the reader will view the flip side of this, when the researcher feels lost, neglected, confused and enmeshed in the academic ‘gig economy’ or ‘gigademia’ (author, 2020b). this method echoes the duality identified by denzin and lincoln (2011), in which the subject position is at times engaged in a politics of resistance on one hand and a politics of possibility on the other (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017, author, 2020b; denzin and lincoln, 2011). this method offers resistance to positivist methodological conventions and embraces multiple truths (pilllow, 2003). the next section will discuss the various categories of autoethnography that underpin the qualitative data. 3. literature review background the literature review education is one of many sectors in which employees can feel a disconnect between sometimes contradictory or selective statistics about teachers, their profession and their lived experience (richardson, 1997). this is where autoethnography can offer an alternative to empirical data. in doing so, the intention is to provide an illuminating case study of one person’s real experience, to illuminate social phenomena and contribute in a small way to the wider body of social research. autoethnographic papers have a tendency to employ innovative methods of data collection and can encourage more creative freedom than traditional empirical research methods (gubrium and holstein, 1997; denzin, 2017; spry, 2009; denscombe, 2007). this review is intended to be a selection of ideas that have informed the research questions, as opposed to a comprehensive overview of the multifarious forms of autoethnography. the intention is that the review will achieve a deeper synthesis and will also help narrow the focus. i will synthesise the literature and qualitative data in the analysis section. the literature has uncovered the followed research questions: • what are the issues with categorising types of taxonomies of autoethnography? • how does autoethnography draw on postmodernist challenges to traditions in academic research and claims of ontological and epistemological truths (ellis and bochner, 2011; spry, 2001)? • how effective is autoethnography is helping authors search for social justice through telling stories (adams & holman jones, 2008; ellis and bochner, 2011)? in terms of attempts to address these research questions, i will begin by reviewing literature that tackles the issues of definition and taxonomy. problems of definition some authors have proposed that the hybrid nature of autoethnography can make it a little hard to define. this hybridity can encourage academics to dismiss it as indulgent (roth, 2008) or lazy and egotistical (delamont, 2007; coffey, 2009, both cited in doloriert and sambrook, 2012; campbell, 2017). moreover, some autoethnographers have chronicled their own vilification, sometimes even profane abuse (campbell, 2017; spry, 2000). doloriert and sambrook (2011) distil autoethnographies into three epistemological positions: firstly, emotional, evocative autoethnography; secondly, analytical, realist autoethnography and thirdly, a postmodern, radical, polemical autoethnography (2011). how useful are these taxonomies? taxonomies of autoethnography: analytic autoethnography some of the most influential authors about autoethnography have emphasised its frequent use of mixed methods. these methods, usually with a narrow dataset, provide access to otherwise inaccessible data. examples of such data are the feelings and experiences of the researcher as part of the field (bochner, 2013). for anderson (2006, 2010), analytic autoethnography makes the researcher visible at the centre of the research setting and their narratives offer ‘the gift of living testimony’ (ellis and prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 4 early view bochner, 2006 pp 430). the researcher is also committed to their contribution to the broader social debates (anderson, 2006, 2010; wall, 2008) but in a way that opens up debates, rather than closing them down (ellis and bochner, 2006). ellis and bochner (2006) posit the view that analytical autoethnography is excessively predicated on the desire to reach a conclusion. what constitutes a text can be the self (wall, 2008; ellis, adams and bochner, 2011); sometimes, the body is itself a text, for example within the context of dance or other performance art. (spry, 2000, 2009). when the autoethnographer uses their art or their body as a text, this can then become a piece of performative autoethnography. that said, these categories are fluid: not all autoethnographies linked to the body are performative. an example of this is enriquez-gibson’s (2018) study of the mobile body as subject matter. here, the body is a feature of the researcher’s ‘embodied subjectivity’ (enriquezgibson, 2018. p. 303). evocative autoethnography the literature has explored thematic distinctions between analytic and evocative autoethnographies. ellis and bochner (2006) posit the view that, while analytical autoethnography is excessively predicated on the desire to reach a conclusion, evocative autoethnographers favour the journey (ellis and bochner, 2006). while language itself invites categorisation, evocative autoethnography, therefore, is more of an exploratory, iterative goal than a category of creative expression (clark, 2020). education is one of many sectors in which employees can feel a disconnect between sometimes contradictory or selective statistics and their lived experience (richardson, 1997; josselson and liebech, 1995). this is where autoethnography can provide an illuminating case study of one person’s reality. furthermore, language can even help create or shape our lived experiences in a way that transcends the illusion of objectivity generated by empirical research methods (rorty, 1982). language, then, could help make sense of an ever-evolving self (heehs, 2013). indeed, autoethnography can sometimes be deployed as a forum for expressing the emotions associated with the refracted, disparate, marginalised, plural self (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017). in analysing emotions, however, the process is in danger of becoming indulgent. that said, there can be something edifying about deploying theory to help understand difficult situations (hooks, 1994; anderson, 2006; chang, 2008; pillow, 2003). the connections between emotions and rigorous reflexivity will be developed in the methodology and analysed in the discussion. performative autoethnography the literature here reflects the ways in which aspects of performance theatrical, musical, poetic, balletic and so on can be deployed as ways of generating theoretical papers that explore issues of democracy, social justice and morality (sughrua, 2017). the literature on performative autoethnography is, perhaps, problematised by the increasing diversity and lassitude adopted by autoethnographers in telling their stories (wall, 2008; denzin and lincoln, 2011). some of the literature on performative autoethnography focuses on art and expression as the researcher taking control of their own representation. indeed, denzin and lincoln (2011) propose that nothing exists beyond representation. this element of autoethnography is seen by some as more likely to be analysed in an exploratory, not confirmatory manner (denzin, 2012), which distinguishes it from analytic autoethnography’s concern with the destination, rather than the journey (ellis and bochner, 2006). the performative autoethnographer frequently searches for an extended metaphor to frame the themes of the piece. the use of a metaphor, though, should be treated with caution, as they can sometimes break down and start to cloud the overall purpose and coherence of the autoethnography (clandinin and connelly, 2000). this form of autoethnography enables the researcher to engage a form of cartography a mapping of the self, emotions and experiences. for this author, there is a central tension between the physical self presenting at conferences, lecturing, supporting students and the online self performative, mediated by the means of communication and potentially refracted by users prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 5 early view and interactants (gatson, 2011, in denzin and lincoln, 2011). the autoethnographer is mindful of the need to create qualitative research that has aesthetic merit and findings that could contribute to debates on social justice (tracey, 2016; adams & holman jones, 2008; ellis and bochner, 2011; sughrua, 2017). at the same time, the form combines the macro of social justice with the micro of individual narratives that explore the self as a form of qualitative inquiry (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017; wall, 2006). in that sense, then, every search for social justice in qualitative inquiry may be viewed as a critique of authors’ micro performances and injustices (holman jones, adams and ellis, 2016). realist autoethnography much of the literature on the categories of autoethnography is dominated by the more prominent thinkers in the field. ellis and bochner (2006), for example, would argue that realist autoethnography can have value by successfully positioning the reader but it frequently treats story as data to be analysed (2006 pp 44). anderson’s (2006) five key features of autoethnography in the realist tradition are: complete member researcher status, analytic reflexivity, narrative visibility of the researcher’s self, dialogue with informants beyond the self and a commitment to theoretical analysis, in terms of the first of anderson’s features complete member researcher status it could be argued that producing an autoethnographic piece attempts to challenge pervasive positivist notions (ellis et al, 2011) and claims of universal truths (struthers, 2014). furthermore, autoethnography recognises the role of personal experience of a situation; the researcher as social actor therefore strives to illuminate the broader context (anderson, 2006). the researcher’s interpretation is a valuable knowledge source and this reflexive method allows for an element of creative freedom and innovation (ellis et al, 2011). moreover,, analytic flexibility calls for the researcher to develop analytical insights through recounting their own reflections on their experiences (anderson, 2006, 2010). though the opinions of others are welcome, the third category dialogue with informants beyond the self demands data to be generated through dialogue with others. though my autoethnography moves away from the evocative and instead embraces the exploration of theoretical notions, i will resist the temptation to interview others, as this may help the paper have more focus. this paper, therefore, will aim to eschew one of anderson’s categories that of dialogue with informants beyond the self (2006, 2010). a focus on one person’s fractured experiences may lead to a more coherent theoretical analysis (anderson, 2006, 2010). indeed, this idea has occupied a body of literature post-2010, as the promiscuous form of autoethnography research started to embrace the contribution of emerging digital literacies. digital autoethnography and connectivism earlier literature in this field explored online autoethnographies as exploring versions of the self that may have a basis in reality but are augmented, hyperbolical (ellis and bochner, 2010; author, 2020b). digital autoethnography has become more commonplace since the 2010s with the ubiquity of digital recording devices. recent studies have used digital methods such as self-interviews and self-shot video as data to deconstruct a constructed self (neil, 2017). some emerging literature interrogates the notion of digital autoethnography, in which educators use the form to ‘help them understand their place in the digital ecosystem’ (author, 2020b, p51). here, there is a link to the notion of connectivism, in which knowledge is a connected, negotiated process (siemens, 2005; downes, 2020; shukie, 2019; author, 2018a; b). indeed, digital autoethnographies can update the theory of connectivism by celebrating the portability and connectivity of recording devices to help create knowledge that is both created and curated (atay, 2020; dunn and myers, 2020; hunter, 2020; clark, 2020). downes (2020) warned of the potential anarchy of such an ecosystem as whose body of knowledge is fluid. knowing how to harness this knowledge is more important than static facts (siemens, 2005; downes, 2020; shukie, 2019). conclusions from literature review autoethnography develops from postmodern philosophy (author, 2020b). as a result, autoethnography challenges positivist claims of truth and objectivity in social science research, sometimes prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 6 early view in a rebellious, iconoclastic way (wall, 2008; ellis and bochner, 2006). one of the of opportunities of this challenge to positivism is to produce qualitative research with academic rigour. to achieve this, le roux (2016) recommends that the autoethnographer is self-consciously subjective, achieves self-reflexivity through critiquing their own subject position and invites the reader to engage in the narrative (le roux, 2016). in terms of selection and exclusion criteria, this literature review de-selected the wider theoretical debates about educational technology and digital literacy (author, 2020b). the broader context of educational technology is already reviewed in author (2018a;b;2019a;b). there is a growing body of emerging literature originating from autoethnographies whose raison d’etre is to challenge the hegemonic status of specific groups of people, for example white, male, middle/upper class, heterosexual, able-bodied, christian academic writing and so on (ellis and bochner, 2001). the reason for the exclusion of these autoethnographies from this review was the risk of losing focus and attempting to harness a potentially unwieldy field of knowledge. further research could be a systematic review of autoethnographic writing about issues of identity, which are inseparable from the desire for social justice. an exploration of selected aspects of autoethnography has helped narrow the focus of my research questions. the challenge will be to re-figure or re-specify the traditional definitions of and approaches to the topic (hart, 2018, pp15-16) this challenge should be illuminated by a rigorous methodology and a meaningful qualitative database, which will be explored in the conclusion section. the next section will address the selected research methodology. 4. methodology this section summarises the methodology employed for creating, collating and analysing the visual narratology (hunter, 2020). the methodology section will outline the process of ethical approval, piloting, data collection, coding and how reflexive thematic analysis will help focus the data collection and generate a more original, rigorous and credible analysis (charmaz, 2006; braun and clarke, 2006; 2019; nowell, norris and white, 2017). the process of ethical approval was liberating insofar as there were no named persons in the visual narratology. in that sense, the ethical approval process was uncomplicated (bera, 2011); in place of situational ethics, the paper’s ethical code is drawn from relational ethics, through which the qualitative researcher stays true to themselves and their values (ellis, 2007). in terms of how the methodology is informed by the literature, this paper embraces the notion that data collection methods, coding and analysis are given a form of lassitude that could be perceived as chaotic, amorphous or unnecessarily emotive (adams, jones and ellis, 2015). such an unconventional methodology could suit the paper’s exploration of complex themes, such as identity (clark, 2020; wall, 2008). at the same time, it should be stressed that the study follows the conventions of autoethnographers’ tendency to eschew a positivist epistemology in favour of social constructionism (doloriert and sambrook, 2011; ellingson and ellis, 2008). the methodology is aiming less at epistemological truths and more towards ontological meanings (turner, 2001). the methodological purpose, then, will be the creation of a generalisability through vicarious identification with the paper’s themes (allen-collinson and hockey, 2008). put more simply, the contribution of this paper may be to enable people to put their own experiences into context and engage in a tacit dialogue, thus forming a co-constructed meaning. indeed, hunter (2020) argues that visual narratology may begin through the lens of the creator but it lends itself to open, polysemic, negotiated meaning. pilot study & sampling the initial pilot was a transcription of an interview about working conditions in education that i recorded for a friend’s dissertation. the transcript cannot be included here, in light of ethical considerations. i did consider relational ethics (ellis, 2009) as a way of navigating my way around ethical concerns but the prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 7 early view data was too personal and potentially identified too many people. the visual images were created on a desktop publishing app called canva and were used to create a new rudimentary theory, arising from the qualitative data ( culshaw, 2019). the work followed the convention of conducting a pilot study to help refine the follow up data (biggam, 2015; punch, 2014; boynton, 2005). a pilot study is designed to test the feasibility of the research. to do this, it is recommended that the researcher uses authentic situations and real participants (denscombe, 2007). the initial theories could then start to interrogate the broader social context through qualitative data (cohen, manion and morrison, 2002). sampling is an essential component in the development of empirical research. this project used purposive sampling (denscombe, 2007). the reason for this is that the researcher as subject was, at the time, a casualised member of staff in higher education and therefore a member of a typical group (denscombe 2007). this typicality invites further consideration (denscombe, 2007; rubin and babbie, 2012). a potential weakness of this approach, however, is that the work could descend into indulgent navel-gazing and provide a selective autobiography, not an autoethnography. this is one of the reasons for applying reflexive thematic analysis to help discriminate between redundant and relevant data, restrict the lines of inquiry, then make generalisations (punch, 2014; denscombe, 2007; ellis and bochner, 2010; braun and clarke, 2019). data collection: from crystallising the narrative writing the pieces of narrative writing discussed in author (2020b) were essentially a research diary and field notes. i had omitted anything potentially harmful to myself or others. this helped produce some empirical evidence (punch, 2014; duncan, 2004; wall, 2008), which could be crystallised via the visual narratology (hunter, 2020; eldridge, 2012). the autoethnographic process, however, would remain iterative and meandering (clark, 2020). once familiar with the narrative writing, i could then transition from amorphous narrative writing (gubrium and holstein, 1997) into a meaningful arena for inquiry (clandinin and connelly, 2000). this was essentially an act of familiarising myself with potentially unwieldy qualitative data (denscombe, 2007), so i could focus on dominant themes for the process of visual narratology (hunter, 2020). reflexive thematic analysis and the absence of a specific theoretical framework as the literature explored was disparate, a deeper, more focused but flexible research design was needed one which was not wedded to a specific theoretical framework (braun and clarke, 2019). this way, the researcher can, for example, arrive at theories from inductive analysis of the data (charmaz, 2006, 2014). in terms of a justification of deploying reflexive thematic analysis as a methodology instead of grounded theory, one response is that grounded theory was applied to a recent autoethnographic study of mine (author, 2020b). in addition to this, though, the flexibility of reflexive thematic analysis empowers the researcher to make active choices in how they treat the data (braun and clarke, 2019). this study chooses reflexive thematic analysis because of its organic nature allows more creative freedom and the potential for theories to be at the end of an iterative journey (braun and clarke, 2006; 2019; clark, 2020). that said, this methodology is inductive, data-driven and still explores the epistemological and ontological assumptions arising from the data (braun and clarke, 2019; rubin and babbie, 2012;punch, 2014). one of the assumptions that this paper is aware of is that reflexive thematic analysis is not theoretically neutral, as they reflect the values of a qualitative paradigm (braun and clarke, 2019). the first section of the following chapter on findings will consider coding. as the data is subjective and creative, i will fuse the description of finding with the analysis. coding & thematic analysis autoethnography is prone to eschewing positivist notions of allowing ‘clear and fixed meaning’ to emerge from the qualitative data (braun, clarke and weate, 2016 p3). to achieve this perceived empiricism, the researcher would apply rigorous prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 8 early view coding frameworks. instead, i will be adopting braun, clarke and weate’s (2016) more active approach. here, the researcher engages with the data firstly by identifying surface meanings. braun, clarke and weate (2016) call the surface meanings semantic codes and the implicit meanings latent codes. this coding will be carried out in a deductive way, in which the meaning is underpinned by conceptual framework about autoethnography as a qualitative research methodology (2016). in order to assess the extent to which reflexive thematic analysis was a success, it would be prudent to reiterate clarke and braun’s (2019) notion that theories never emerge from the data; instead, they are generated, formulated. moreover, the researcher is an active agent in the production of themes, and this can sometimes be coloured by researcher bias (clarke and braun, 2019). furthermore, tracey (2016) emphasises the importance of the autoethnographer writing evocatively and eloquently, in order that the research has aesthetic value (tracy, 2016). indeed, bochner and ellis (2002) proposed that autoethnographic writing should blur the boundaries between literature and social science. to be faithful to this notion, i will employ the first person during this section, as i will be exploring themes that i have generated through analysis and reflection. the themes are explored through the discussion of the following: • visual metaphors • verbal metaphors • semiotic analysis the author embraced coding as an iterative and organic process (clark, 2020). coding should provide a vivid evocation of the data (braun and clarke, 2019; rolfe, et al, 2011). this paper followed the established paradigms of coding in qualitative research. the structure of this would-be a thorough familiarisation of the data, coding, then development of themes (braun and clarke, 2019). the following section will provide both a presentation of findings and an analysis and discussion. i have made this decision to minimise the risk of creating an indulgent and egotistical piece of autoethnographic writing (spry, 2000; doloriert and sambrook, 2012; campbell, 2017). findings and discussion for all texts, i used a template on canva to create a deliberately polysemic text. i have prefaced each text with a series of questions for the reader, to help them identify with their own subject position in relation to each text. i initially intended to make my analysis selfreflexive. as the texts are polysemic, i also wished the process of making meaning to feel collaborative. one of the reasons for this is that it became clear that my own subject position was changing frequently. the intention of this is to invest the piece with resonance and therefore academic rigour (le roux, 2016). i refined my data in a methodical fashion to help me demonstrate a central organising concept and to avoid relaying a broad, domain summary (braun and clarke, 2019). to do this, i initially identified semantic or surface codes, then latent or underlying codes (rolfe, et al, 2011; braun and clarke, 2019). the most effective way of identifying surface codes would be through visual narratology (hunter, 2020), which will be the first part of the presentation of findings relating to each text. i will analyse these findings in relation to the literature on autoethnography. text a questions for the reader: how much choice do you have? would you like more choice? how much more? what would be too much choice? prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 9 early view text a: surface codes text a provides evidence of my developing skillset as a teacher educator and my ambivalent feelings towards being a portfolio careerist. though i am not a technology evangelist (clark, 2020), i relish the practice of developing new technical skills, creating easy but effective content and sharing my new found knowledge. texts such as these were disseminated at conferences only and differ from social media posts, which provide a performative public face (hunter, 2020; author, 2020b; clark, 2020). latent codes in this case, i feel that i was using the interplay of image and text to communicate a sense of helplessness, mixed with an exhilaration at the thought of having opportunity and control. the graphic of the hot air balloon unites these two themes. the text exists as an interplay between words and text. it establishes an unconscious pattern, in which i formed a rhetorical, bipartite structure to help express an emotion. it could be argued that this text is an example of how autoethnography can be egotistical and self-obsessed (doloriert and sambrook, 2012; campbell, 2017). at the same time, text a points to my ambivalence towards technology; less a technology evangelist, more a technology agnostic or double agent (author, 2020b). viewed through the subjective lens of hindsight, the balloon could be a symbolic manifestation of my identity as an academic taking flight. the interplay of words, images and graphics helps construct an identity (hunter 2020; culshaw, 2019; author 2020b). these building blocks of identity consist of disparate elements and are essentially polysemic (author, 2020b; baker & nelson, 2005, in di domenico et al, 2010; mcilveen, 2008; hebdige, 1979; hunter (2020). text b questions for the reader: how much do you feel you count? are you increasingly a piece of data, at the expense of the self? text b: surface codes text b is more in line with ‘day x’ in the initial mock novel which expresses the more negative feelings about my work as a portfolio careerist (author, 2020b). i am reduced to a number, a piece of data, as i struggle with the alienation of being on the outside looking in. i have invested the juxtaposition of graphics and text with more complex meanings since i created the text. the more i peered into academia from the sidelines, desperate to be allowed in, the more i started to make mental links between the increasing significance of data and the dehumanisation of people. the more data i saw, the more frustrated i felt and therefore less human. latent codes the deliberately polysemic nature of the graphic in text b suggests that meaning will be an iterative journey (braun and clarke, 2006; 2019; clark, 2020; ellis and bochner, 2006). moreover, the subjective interpretation of the surface codes is fluid but so are education and academia (hunter, 2020). the intentionally rhetorical nature of the words and graphic suggests a piece of qualitative data for an evocative autoethnography. the danger here, of prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 10 early view course, is that the researcher becomes indulgent (doloriert and holbrook, 2012; spry, 2000; hooks, 1994). despite the risk of indulgence, text b constitutes a visual representation of an evolving self (heehs, 2013). the self here is singular but if more people are empowered with creative freedom, one person's autoethnography could gather momentum if multiplied. these multiple accounts could potentially be more powerful than the arguably illusory nature of some empirical data (rorty, 1982). it could also be argued that the application of theory to texts such as these could help elucidate otherwise hidden truths (anderson, 2006). text c questions for the reader: do you know who you are? what aspects of your identity are you comfortable and uncomfortable with? text c: surface codes text c denotes a montage of stills from a video of me that i posted on social media. the stills have been cropped to appear in close up and to remove the author’s face. the accompanying graphics created on canva list answers to the repeated question, ‘who am i?’ the answers denote the work that i was doing, whether paid or unpaid, fixed or permanent, self-employed or university-employed. the post gained significant traction and engagement (author, 2020b). the montage expresses the mixed emotions behind the fact that, at the time, i didn’t know what role i was due to perform from one day to the next (clark, 2020; author, 2020b). in terms of the text’s emotional resonance, these graphics and stills from a self-shot video are a cry for help about my feelings of alienation and dislocation. they are also a celebration of the exhilaration of my diverse skills and varied experiences in work. i had never felt so excited and energised by my work. i had never felt so lost in my work; it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. latent codes such expressions of dislocated emotions and fractured identities are common features of autoethnography. in common with texts a and b, text c is a piece of primary qualitative data that was authentic, and performative (gatson, 2011, in denzin and lincoln, 2011). i was chronicling but also attempting to make meaning from my evolving sense of self (heehs, 2013). this sense of self was redolent of marginalisation but infused with plurality, creative energy and opportunity (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017). the crucial difference between text c and the others is that i elected to reveal my own face redacted ), which is juxtaposed to a date and a role. this act of naming has been an essential ontological development (hunter, 2020; eldridge, 2012). once a name had been given to each role, i could then reflect more deeply on how authentic each role felt to my evolving self (heehs, 2013). though the taxonomies of autoethnography are fluid, this text perhaps sits in the realist tradition, in which the researcher as participant literally has narrative visibility (anderson, 2006). furthermore, the prominence of one person’s story offers a challenge to positivist claims of empirical truth (ellis et al, 2011; struthers, 2014; anderson, 2006). text d text d questions for the reader: what various roles do you have? do these roles form a coherent whole? what might make these roles feel more coherent? surface codes the use of the adjective ‘schizoid’ in text d is absolutely not a literal reference to schizophrenia. the use of the word ‘schizoid’ is a rhetorical device and therefore problematic. th graphics to the right direct the meaning more closely. the emotion behind the text was that it was a daily challenge to unite my diverse roles into something that created a coherent prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 11 early view identity. while my current role is coherent and rewarding in its diversity, this text depicts the pain of part of the journey. a full-time, permanent contract has since provided a cure to this malaise. latent codes on reflection, i would argue that elements of this text echo the conventions of the evocative autoethnography. here, the researcher as participant favours the journey over the destination (ellis and bochner, 2006). the renewed perspective here (jay and johnson, 2002) arises from the confirmation of the causes of these feelings of dislocation and fragmentation. text d conforms to the codes of the potentially indulgent form of realist autoethnography. one of the potential issues arising from this is the problematical meaning of the adjective, ‘schizoid’, once it has been read by others and its meaning recontextualised. its themes of marginalisation and plurality (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017; hooks, 1994) have more in common with text e (below). text e questions for the reader: what are your feelings towards this image? what would you like to confess about your feelings that you never have a chance to? how might you find a space to communicate how you feel? surface codes text e was created to crystallise the overarching themes of the mock novel confessions of portfolio careerist (author, 2020b). the canva template was for a mainstream, salacious novel. the imagery matched the emotion i wished to convey. the reason why this was that calling myself a portfolio careerist did not feel right and its multiple realities bought a sense of shame on one hand and pride on the other. the imagery is intended to mirror this confessional tone. the shame was from the fractured identity and the pride was from the independence, good rates of pay and diverse skillset. i wanted to actually create a complete and real novel of the same name, as a reassuring and empowering ‘how to’ guide for new and potential portfolio careerists. the playfulness of the imagery reflected how my situation may have been precarious and fractured at worst, it was also invigorating and exciting. latent codes the cover for a mock novel in text d is performative and exploratory, rather than confirmatory (denzin, 2012). this and the remaining texts had been displayed as part of a presentation, which i had delivered at conferences. i was interested prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 12 early view in the ways in which the potential meanings of this texts would be debated and refracted by those who viewed them (gatson 2011, in denzin and lincoln, 2011; hunter, 2020; eldridge, 2012). i was also intrigued by the potential ways in which the simple act of constructing a piece of visual narratology could enable me to interrogate my own subject position (pillow, 2003). in this sense, text d draws on the connectivist notions that knowledge is co-constructed, collaborative and negotiated siemens, 2005; downes, 2020; shukie, 2019; author, 2018a; b). in a connectivist culture, text d raises several questions all of which exist in a state of fluidity: what is a portfolio careerist? is this a good thing? what does the image mean? what ideological messages do novels with covers like this one contains? what does the image mean and how relevant is my own subject position; to what extent is the image phallocentric, ethnocentric, fetishistic, flippant, offensive? how can texts such as these be subverted, recontextualised and negotiated by readers? the active choice that i have made in including provides the self-reflexivity that le roux (2016) believes can invest autoethnography with academic rigour. the inclusion of this problematic text and the accompanying questions are essentially a provocation for the general reader. moreover, the text helps continue the internal dialogue that is essential for true reflexivity (frank falk and miller, 1998). 5. legitimate social inquiry? from examining and coding the data, i was able to identify several themes that captured shared meanings, all of which are situated, located and contextualised (braun and clarke, 2019). this means of categorising themes lends itself to the analysis of visual narratology (hunter, 2020). before i list these, it is important to state that these themes are not merely codes (braun and clarke, 2019). additionally, it has been difficult to minimise the risk of participant bias or to view the meaning as buried in the data (punch, 2014; denscombe, 2007; braun and clarke, 2019). what also became apparent is that the creative artefacts that i created lent themselves to a style of analysis that was similar to that of the collage. here, the artefact is viewed as part of a visuallydominated culture. this culture embraces non-linear and polysemic texts that are open to multiple interpretations and can be refracted through hindsight bias (culshaw, 2019; author, 2020b; anderson 2006). in this sense, the qualitative data could be seen to resemble an evocative autoethnography, which aims for resonance through potentially indulgent emotional identification (ellis, 2004; anderson, 2006). this deliberate subjectivity can be viewed as lacking academic rigour. furthermore, one of the ongoing challenges of autoethnography could be seen as a potential denigration of the arena of qualitative inquiry (anderson 2006; author, 2020b i echo le roux’s (2016) argument that the fluid, interactive and polysemic nature of this study’s qualitative data is part of a body of work that can widen the lens of the social world by eschewing rigid definitions of academic research. moreover, the selfconscious subjectivity has made the author and context visible (le roux, 2016). this verisimilitude is potentially resonant with the reader, though i have no control over how readers will interpret or relate to my qualitative data. in the context of rising stress levels, turbulence and uncertainty, the therapeutic potential of autoethnographies presents a case for their resonance and generalisability (rolfe, 2011; ellis, adams and bochner, 2011; le roux, 2016). 6. conclusions triangulating research methods this term is derived from the empirical process of viewing data from various angles, in order to validate it. i am now able to establish that i have compared a variety of forms of qualitative data: narrative writing and twitter analytics from a related paper, visual narratology, using imagery and text. i am now confident that these multiple perspectives have helped validate the data from this and the previous study (denzin, 1978). a renewed perspective? in reviewing the literature and critiquing the methodology and data, this paper poses important questions for future research. one of these future questions is likely to be how the storytelling inherent prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 13 early view in podcasting helped chronicle the challenges of education and edtech during the covid-19 crisis. i am the author of my own story and have invited the reader into the realism of the researcher as social actor (anderson, 2006). the study has resisted analytic autoethnography’s desire for narrative resolution and has favoured the iterative journey (ellis and bochner, 2006). yet, in some ways, my own narrative writing bears a strong similarity to some of the elements of more conventional research. the narrative writing is primary data, which is raw, honest, truthful and open to a variety of interpretations. the related images served as a prelinguistic rhetorical device that fits the conventions of evocative autoethnography (spry, 2000; campbell, 2017, anderson, 2006). the images are left to resonate with the reader and open up debates (ellis, 2004). this is a departure from more structured readings of visual imagery; my images are intended to be encoded with semiotic, symbolic, analytical and interpretive meanings that are the product of creative freedom (gubrium and holstein, 1997; denzin, 2017; spry, 2009; denscombe, 2007; culshaw, 2019).) the accompanying literature review in this paper is, of course the work of others, standing on the shoulder of giants, as it were. conventional research, then, is necessarily collaborative, promiscuous, kleptomaniac. through my autoethnographic story, i hope to be part of a large and growing movement whose work is tangential to the tyranny of hard data (punch, 2014; author, 2018, 2019b). the use of narrative writing and non-linear visual metaphors are part of this process (culshaw, 2019). in embracing and amplifying the individual voices of those telling their stories with creative freedom, we could enrich our collective body of academic knowledge (fuchs, 2017). this process can be enhanced and facilitated by adopting digital autoethnography’s celebration of the portability and connectivity of digital technology (atay, 2020; dunn and myers, 2020; hunter, 2020; clark, 2020). there is an argument for using a hybrid methodology, particularly combining reflexive thematic analysis and discourse analysis (braun and clarke, 2019). conversely, this could risk communicating an unfocused set of generalisations and conclusions. it is necessary to explore the extent to which this paper has helped develop a theoretical framework. i initially proposed that my qualitative inquiry was akin to the work of an anthropologist, whose status is a curious outsider (sampson, 2004). ideas such as these, however, are not theoretically or ideologically neutral. secondly, any theory that has been arrived at is not through a simple reification of concepts (braun and clarke, 2019). through reflexivity, i have critiqued the data and demonstrated an awareness of the risk of researcher bias. performative elements in the act of mapping of the self, in a form of online cartography, i have clarified my place in a potentially infinite space. my physical self in my case presenting at conferences, lecturing, supporting students and the online self are more in harmony through embracing the performative elements. mediated by the means of communication and potentially refracted by users and interactants (gatson, 2011, in denzin and lincoln, 2011). addressing the research questions in qualitative research, the research question is often prone to change during the process (braun and clarke, 2019). the process of data collection, coding, analysis and conclusion has further narrowed the focus of and reconfigured the research questions. the qualitative dataset and analysis lead me to the conclusion that the research question that is best suited to my findings is this: • how effective is autoethnography is helping authors search for social justice through telling stories (adams & holman jones, 2008; ellis and bochner, 2011)? the above is what i feel to be one of the most generalisable elements of this study and that is the way in which visual narratology and reflexivity can help the researcher reconstruct the self (ellis and bochner, 2011). this reconstruction through reflexivity has helped me understand, harness and contextualise my diverse skillset (author, 2020b; frank falk and miller, 1998). prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 14 early view bridging the chasm? connectivism. one person’s story can make a valid contribution to knowledge but that knowledge is collaborative and fluid. this paper develops the notion of connectivism discussed in some of my recent papers author (2018a; b;2019a). the findings in this paper echo shukie’s (2019) view that connectivism shows that the powerbase of knowledge is an increasingly decentralised and individualistic learning culture (shukie, 2019). downes (2020), however, warns of the potential anarchy of a mode of education in which access to the fluid nature of knowledge is more important than static facts (siemens 2005). siemens, 2005; downes, 2020; shukie, 2019). to develop this paper, i will draw on autoethnography to examine my subject position by using podcasting to try to chronicle the development of educational technology since covid-19. in that sense the next stage of the research will propose that one way to bridge the chasm – between education and technology, between teacher education and edtech – is to curate individual stories as resonant qualitative data. the next stage of this study therefore be a collaborative autoethnography, using podcasting as data. the first stage will be crowdsourcing audio stories on vocaroo – an audio recording app. the interviews that follow will be structured through the use of phenomenological interviewing. prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 15 early view 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2022) atherton (2022) prism 16 early view 9. references adams, t. e., jones, s., h. & ellis, c. 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(2008). easier said than done: writing an autoethnography. international journal of qualitative methods, 7(1), 38-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700103 https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-3628(2014)0000010015 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419830132 https://youtu.be/bq_5mdoonkm https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700103 prism journal prism volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 113 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 learning from collaborative ‘conversations’ on the students as producer pedagogic model: students’ views katie strudwick1 and phil johnson2 1 school of social and political sciences, university of lincoln, lincoln, uk (kstrudwick@lincoln.ac.uk) 2 department of criminology, university centre blackburn college, blackburn, uk (philip.johnson@blackburn.ac.uk) received: 13/01/2020 accepted for publication: 18/03/2020 published: 18/06/2020 abstract this paper explores and reflects on the outcomes of the application of two different pedagogic models at two higher education institutions in the uk, university centre at blackburn college and the university of lincoln. through a set of collaborative ‘conversations’ the experiences of the pedagogic practices – from a sample of participating students – within and across the two institutions are contextualised in relation to the following projects: the community challenge project, developed and implemented at university centre blackburn college; and, the student as producer initiative developed and implemented at the university of lincoln. the reflections and narratives that emerged from the collaborative conversations are grouped (and explored) via four key themes: student engagement, research skills, employability, and curriculum design; a number of similarities and differences are also highlighted in relation to the two projects. these variations support the point made by bovill (2015: np) that ‘[i]f we constantly question ourselves and each other about partnerships, we are more likely to gain greater understanding to enhance future partnerships’. beyond this, the paper addresses wider literature in relation to the students as partners (healey, flint and harrington, 2014), and students as change agents as pedagogic approaches (dunne & zandstra, 2011). finally, the paper considers whether a common pedagogic ethos can be identified. keywords: student as producer, students as partners, collaboration, student engagement, skills 1. lincoln: student as producer in 2010-13 the university of lincoln (uol) commenced the ‘student as producer: researchengaged teaching, an institutional strategy’ project funded by the higher education academy (hea), which was developed by mike neary as an institutional teaching and learning strategy. the pedagogic model developed – and used – as part of this project helped reassess the ‘imbalance between teaching and research’ (neary & winn, 2009, p.193), in a radical manner. as a multi-disciplinary and research engaged https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:kstrudwick@lincoln.ac.uk mailto:philip.johnson@blackburn.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0733-2572 prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 114 3(1) teaching approach, students as producers sought to transform higher education teaching and learning into a more co-operative student experience. as a model, it emphasised the importance of establishing and developing partnerships and collaborations between academics and students. in the ever-changing higher education environment, the students as producers approach (sapr), promoted – and continues to promote – the value of student agency in identifying and pursuing meaningful participations with academics; furthermore it served, and continues to serve, as a critique of market-based consumerism now endemic throughout english higher education. subsequently, neary & saunders (2016) identify the model ‘as a critical response to attempts by national governments to create and consolidate a consumerist culture and impose high levels of debt among undergraduate students’ (2016, p.2). as a pedagogic challenge to market-based standardised product choice of higher education, the sapr approach looks to reposition the role of the student, from one of passive consumer, to a more dynamic position as active collaborator. through involved participation and engagement sapr students are afforded direct and influential input in to the broadening of ‘their learning experiences through opportunities to be participants in research activity as well as teaching and learning projects.’ (strudwick, 2017, p.75). practically, institutional support for sapr at the university of lincoln (uol), facilitated resourced opportunities for participation in partnership projects (uros),1 alongside other forms of student engagement partnerships, involving curriculum design and extra curricula practices. furthermore the value of student voice (a key facet of sapr) was to become enshrined across all disciplines, with students increasingly being identified as co-producers of knowledge, as opposed to simply consuming pre-packaged canons of knowledge. sapr, using mathiesen’s model as an organising framework, sought to provide an ‘alternative radical form of higher education’ (neary & saunders 2016, 1 undergraduate research opportunities scheme (uros) supports undergraduate students through bursaries for research conducted between staff and students at the p.14) against the trends of neo liberalised forms of higher education. by critiquing the contradictions evident within increased he marketisation, with students ‘being at the heart’ (bis 2011), neary & winn (2017, p. 2) argue sapr is not just an innovative approach but ‘principally a pedagogical project that aims to reconstitute higher education’; as neary (2015) suggests, sapr should be seen as ‘the heart-beat of the system [in] the production of knowledge and meaning’ (2015, no page). looking to the future, alongside the growing recognition of sapr as a ‘model of good practice’ (neary 2016, p. 90) we have also seen the development of a co-operative university, an ‘autonomous critical pedagogical project,’ in lincoln but outside of the university, the social science centre (ssc) (neary & saunders, 2016, p. 3). 2. ucbc: community challenge university centre blackburn college (ucbc) is a provider of higher education with one of the largest cohorts of students in the ‘he in fe’ part of the sector, known more recently as college based higher education (cbhe). the cbhe position has been criticised for failing to provide “real higher education” and characterised by the equally pejorative term “he lite” (leahy, 2012; creasy, 2013). however, set against such concerns are recent claims for ucbcs place as an institution for embracing, ‘not only new but maverick and innovative academic practices along with a willingness to nurture developments which manifest the potential for wider application’ (hammond, 2017, p.5). this has included its distinct higher education building, which for almost twenty-five years, has provided courses to students living and working in the local area as reflected in the cbhe general characteristics (etf, 2016). it has also included several hea workshops and seminars plus other forms of dissemination, such as book chapters (daley, orr and petrie, 2017) and the inception and initial development of the peer reviewed teaching and learning journal, prism. university of lincoln. see: https://lalt.lincoln.ac.uk/aboutlalt/undergraduateopportunities-research-scheme/ prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 115 3(1) several years before the community challenge and colaborative conversations project, sapr had already influenced pedagogy at ucbc, leading to a public exhibition and subsequent research, from photographs of ‘hidden’ crime as taken by its undergraduate criminology students (johnson, 2011). this form of teaching was part of a wider agenda for the criminology department to enhance learners’ experiences and embrace the diverse forms of responses to learning at undergraduate level. its position as a successful curriculum area was protected by its relatively high student numbers and this facilitated the department’s interest in providing teaching and learning that challenged the hegemony of traditional hierarchies in ‘the university’ by developing more organic forms of knowledge production. this early inception of pedagogic experiementation was followed by the award of a teaching development grant from the hea in 2012 which resulted in the community challenge (cc) project being introduced involving a handful of curriculum areas in the school of social sciences (healey, jenkins and lea, 2013, p.24). the full title of the hea funded project was enhancing employability via community challenge; as part of the context of employability, it introduced an enhanced form of independent learning by way of a student-led project. the creation of small interdisciplinary teams of tutors and students working collaboratively, produced outputs to benefit their local communities. students’ were required to identify their own ‘community challenge’ and apply learning to their respective areas of interest. influences from sapr allowed the application of a critical pedagogic approach to teaching, predicated on ‘encouraging students to take risks, act on their sense of social responsibility, and engage the world as an object of both critical analysis and hopeful transformation’ (giroux, 2018, p.31). open educational resources (oers) and open educational practices (oeps) supported the work and encouraged engagement with opportunities from the growing open education movement. this included the diy form of he known colloquially as ‘edupunk’ which according to one of the original theorists behind the connectivist approach to learning had, ’totally caught wind, spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire’ (downes, 2008, np). despite such support, the approach was soon criticised for lacking clarity and for being too closely aligned to the model of punk purportedly conveyed by the ‘sex pistols’ in the 1970s. it stimulated much interest making appearances in books and numerous blogs, extolling equally its death and growing popularity (kamenetz, 2010 and 2011; cain, 2008; churchill, 2011). as such, the project and subsequent pedagogic iterations required participants’ reflections on sources such as ’going to harvard from your own bedroom’ (bbc news, 21 march 2011); ’is it possible for everybody to be an autodidact, now that knowledge is so accessible online?’ (wall street journal, 4 december 2010); and, ’outsider art: what students can learn from self-taught artists’ (guardian, 8 march 2018). 3. common themes & ethos of student as producer/cc to other models both pedagogic initiatives placed students at the centre of their learning journey, and emphasised the values and benefits of partnerships, collaboration and engagement. the positioning of students as active partners as part of the prjects also played a role in influending their wider experiences of higher education, as the different pedagogic models enabled them to reconsider the relationships between student/lecturer, research and teaching. although, neary (2016, p.90) notes that the recuperations of sapr in different forms of student engagement have ‘denied the subversive intent out of which it originated’ (neary & saunders, 2016), there are clear similarities among the common themes and aims of the different models. healey, flint and harrington (2016), through their work on students as partners (sapa), praise the benefits of such initiatives, stating that, ’our vision for the future is that it should be the norm, not the exception, that students are engaged as partners in learning that cocreating, co-designing, co-researching and co-learning should be common practice between student and staff across higher education’ (p.162). there are similarities between the sapr and cc models of student engagement, and along with prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 116 3(1) students as change agents (dunne & zandstra, 2011) and sapa (healey et al, 2014), can be seen as a multifaceted ’heart of current initiatives … across the sector’ (healey, bovill and jenkins, 2015, 169). they share common threads characterised by student and staff ‘partnership teams’ (matthews et al, 2018; matthews, dwyer, hine, and turner 2019), as collaborators (mercermapstone et al, 2017, bovill, cook-sather & felten, 2011) and as reciprocal cocreators of knowledge with direct student engagement (ahmad, vanmaaren, barrington, merritt, & ansillo 2017, curran, 2017; zepke, 2019, zepke & leach, 2010, bovill, cook-sather, felton, millard, & moore-cherry, 2015). by focusing on providing a challenge in the form of a ’counter-narrative’ (matthews 2016), the ethos of these collective models and approaches are ‘instrumental in enhancing student engagement activities’ (curran & millard 2016, p. 68). sapa, as with sapr and cc, have ultimately been developed to ‘enhance the students’ learning experience’ (coombe, huang, sheppard, & khosravi, 2018, p. 86). however, we would argue that the ethos of sapr, offers a particularly radical agenda for culture change, by aiming to inspire and generate alternative forms of cocreated curriculum development, and related critical initiatives, which harbour the potential to reinvigorate ‘the university beyond the logic of market economics’ (strudwick, 2017, p.175). 4. methodological approaches to generating ‘conversations’ and narratives the rationale for generating shared dialogue between staff and students at both institutions in relation to the two projects was likened to ‘open-tolearning conversations’ (robinson, 2014); the idea was to be both collaborative and critical by encouraging people to speak freely, whilst interacting with other participants. the desire for meaningful dialogue with current and former students was also influenced by the 2 the respective studies were approved by the ethics boards at both ucbc and uol and every member of the circular learning conversations gave their consent to the reproduction of their data as part of this paper. 3 the discourses of 6 participants are not presented as being a substantial sample in the paper, but as one potential ‘conversational’ learning feature which underpins a new undergraduate textbook for criminology (case, johnson, manlow, smith & williams, 2017). the target sample for the collaborative conversations consisted of students and alumnus that had participated in the student as producer or cc initiatives; as a result we opted for a self-selecting sample method.2 this resulted in the recruitment of a sample of four students. the participants were then sent a stimulus to read in advance of the conversations. the stimulus – or conversation prompt – at ucbc, was the hea’s teaching development grant report for community challenge; at uol it was a recent publication on the student as producer model (strudwick, 2017). these conversational prompts were sent one week in advance of the pre-arranged interviews, along with a request for the participants to consider their own experiences and learning journeys. two in-depth unstructured interviews or ‘conversations’ were implemented in the same way at both institutions; these comprised an academic member of staff, a current student and an alumnus.3 following the socratic method, the interviews were implemented in two stages: initially, dialogue took place between members of staff and current students (we termed this ‘the inner circle’); and then, between members of staff and the alumni (we termed this ‘the outer circle’). through our circular learning conversations approach, inspired by paulo freire and myles horton’s we make the road by walking by (1990), meaningful dialogue was explored and obtained in a cumulative way. the conversations lasted thirty-two minutes at ucbc and thirty-five minutes at uol; the transcripts were dominated by the voices of the student participants at both institutions. this meant that the role and influence of the staff member was limited to inquiring about what the students had done whilst studying and engaging in means, when framed within other relevant literature, to further understand core themes within student experiences of research engaged teaching models. prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 117 3(1) activities as part of these pedagogical models; the benefits they felt they had acquired, and any difficulties they had faced. this conversational structure gave both current students and alumni an equal chance to speak; usefully, this resulted in detailed and personal evidence beyond the reach of more formal measures such as module evaluations and the nss through the flexiblility of the conversational prompts and the lberated dialogue of the participants, thematic analysis of the content of the conversations was conducted. inspired by the work of braun & clarke, 2006), we generated initial codes from within the data of the conversations. coding points of interest resulted in the recording of 42 separate concepts overall. the authors then sought connectedness from across the discursive framework of participant responses, to identify dominant themes; this allowed themes such as self-confidence and self-awareness to emerge.4 additional themes focused upon student engagement and research, employability, and the curriculum. the subsequent analyses and comparisons of these core themes, resulted in differences and similarities between sapr / cc approaches being identified. 5. student narratives of student as producer and community challenge commonalities across the narratives from both institutions also highlighted ‘student identity’ as a key area, whether it be as ‘producer’, ‘researcher’ or ‘partner’. crawford, horsley, hagyard and derricott (2015, p.14), note the similarities between the principles of sapr, student engagement and partnerships, acknowledge the role towards peers in student groups and committees, and the potential impact they can have in developing the formal curriculum. nonetheless, the extent of the impact is complex, an issue raised by winstone & parker (n.d.) who highlight the varied role that students can take in research with academics, one evolving from, ‘where the students shifted from merely being participants to 4 such themes from a critical pedagogy perspective, include emancipation and the creation of “critical social agents” (giroux, 2018, p.29). being partners in the analysis, and, furthermore, consultants in crystallising our understanding’. the involvement of students in teaching and learning, as evidenced in the narratives from both of our institutions, demonstrate the breadth of practices adopted. the sapr pedagogic models served to reframe the students’ role through partnerships and collaborative relationships with academics, and reassessing the relationship between research and teaching. the narratives from uol evidence the attractions of having sapr as institutionally integral to their teaching and learning. student engagement was recorded far beyond the customary student voice / nss type of measures, with the impact on student experiences highlighting the positives of building relationships between academics and students, ‘i definitely feel it helped for building relationships with the lecturers and tutors. it’s just meant i feel that much more comfortable asking for help’ (uolstudent-1). narrative acknowledgments also identified the broader purpose of engaging: ‘you have to engage yourself in it, i don't think it is something that develops naturally and is there for the taking, you have got to actually put yourself in that, get this out of this and go to the tutors; that builds rapport, and it snowballs from there … if you do that you will reap the rewards, but you need to push yourself a little bit. you can do uni a lot of different ways, you can skim by not going to a lecture or talk to tutors, or you can get really involved and that will show itself in your own work as well as how you are treated in the community and how it feels to you’ (uol student-1). such views expounded the potential benefits of students having roles as ‘producers’ (neary, saunders, hagyard and derricott, 2014); as ‘partners’ (healey et al, 2014) and ‘consultants’ (winstone & parker, n.d.). all identify the importance of partnerships between students and academics as being fundamental in prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 118 3(1) developing a community of learning. some initiatives, adopted at other institutions, have followed the framework outlined by healey et al., (2014) as part of the sapa approach, while others have continued to apply and develop the sapr framework to enhance student engagement in a wider sense while developing the role of students as ‘researchers’. walkington (2015) discusses engaging students as researchers, ‘to break the long standing disconnect between teaching and research and providing career pathways, reward and recognition for those who support ‘students as researchers’ (p.29). despite the differences in the interpretation of conceptual models and the forms they may take, healey et al., (2016) acknowledge some of the known and common benefits, suggesting that ‘[e]ngaging students as partners is a powerful idea, the implementation of which has the potential to transform he’ (2016, p.1). narratives from the conversations address the values placed by students’ on enhancing the collective identity or community of partnerships. the value of student engagement opportunities and participation, developed under sapr, has the potential to form strong alliances, to enhance greater collaboration with academic tutors and encompass themes of equality and partnership. such positives were observed: ‘i think it really positively impacts you in terms of community feel, you do feel more kind of on a level with other students and academics and it feels like you can go and raise questions and say what about if this ... it does help make you feel part of the school and it raises your kind of confidence levels of what you are capable of doing … the collaborative approach makes you feel more valued as a member of the community and that then leads you to feel more confident in getting involved. it is a snowball thing, one you get involved it is easier to get involved more’ (uol-alumnus-1). such recognition of enhanced student engagement was further identified by students at ucbc, referring to a similar sense of achievement: ‘it helped me find different strengths. i’m older so technology was never my thing, but i love the fact that i now have a video on youtube … never in my wildest dreams did i think i’d ever do something like that’. (ucbc-student-1) the narratives show how pedagogic models of empowerment can build confidence and a sense of selfworth. the benefits of engaging students through collaborations with academics, has been discussed through many different formats or models. for instance, healey et al., (2016) model on sapa establishes student engagement under four main aspects: learning, teaching and assessment; subject based research and inquiry; scholarship of teaching and learning; and, curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy (2016, p. 4). importantly, for the line of argument presented this paper, such conceptual models tend not to present themselves as a ‘schedule’ or ‘formula’ but more as a framework of flexible principles to engage students. the sapr approach, and associated pedagogic models often embrace common core values, as identified by healey, et al., (2016) who argue that dialogue needs to: ‘recognise that there are qualitatively different forms of student engagement and not all involve partnership; our focus is on when institutions go beyond listening to the student voice and engage students as co-learners, co-researchers, co inquirers, co-developers, and co-designers’ (2016, p. 2). acknowledging the differences between alternative approaches is an issue which is important to this paper. as authors, we would argue, there are indeed similarities in some of the core values shown in alternative approaches, such as partnerships, shared values, identities and collaboration; but the differences are also important to recognise, especially considering there is no single process or model but a variety of potential opportunities. engaging students, whether as ‘partners’, ‘producers’, ‘co-designers’ and ‘active learners’ (healey & jenkins, 2009; neary & hagyard, 2010; healey, et al, 2014; neary, et al. 2014, healey et al, 2015, p. 141) has been seen as ‘a hot issue in higher education’ and continues to gain ‘significant momentum’ (mercermapstone et al, 2017, p.3). the model of students as change agents encapsulates the breadth of studentstaff partnerships and meets some of the core aspects of the sapr approach. healey, et al., (2015, p.155) see prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 119 3(1) this approach as representing a shift within teaching and learning, where students are not seen as ‘passive recipients of teaching’ but more transformatively as ‘active contributors and collaborators within the learning process’. this view is similar to neary’s definition of sapr being ‘created through active collaboration amongst and between students and academics’ (neary, et al, 2014, p.9); and students as change agents explicitly supports a view of the student as ‘active collaborator and co-producer’ (dunne & zandstra, 2011, p.4). the themes identified within our narratives, include students identifying their role as active researchers, through opportunities presented in student engagement and employability, all of which complement the sub-themes of models discussed by healey et al., (2014) and (2016). conversations importantly recognise the fluctuation within power relations among students and academics, with levels of confidence, assurances of worth, creativity, and a sense of belonging, with students becoming the producers of knowledge. greater empowerment for students was fostered in student engagement, with insights being valued alongside the potential to reposition voices and positively shift power dynamics. mercer-mapstone et al., (2017, p.14), identify similar themes in their writings on sapa, referencing the reciprocity of partnership and the dialogue between students and academics in their collaborative relationships. this mirrors a number of examples emergent from within our own narratives, including coauthorship and a shared responsibility on projects, all of which can be conceptualised under the ‘ethic of reciprocity’ lens adopted from cook-sather & felten’s work (2017). students at uol participated in small scale projects, leading to shared responsibility for the dissemination of research outcomes. this enabled them to identify themselves as being on an ‘equal footing’, by participating in conference presentations and becoming co-authors on a journal article publication. in this sense, the relationships between students and academics has been transformed by partnerships and shared learning responsibilities. the students at ucbc engaged in equivalent work by using technology in new ways and for different audiences. students participated in many different forms of activities, some within student engagement projects with others relating to extra curricula placements. such contributions match the theme of ‘partnerships in practices’ cited by mercer-mapstone et al (2017, p.16). as authors we agree with bovill (2017, p.1) about differential levels within initiatives, with adaptation being shown at different stages. there is no ‘one’ set way to engage students in partnerships, it is an evolving and fluid development; as noted by bovill, sapr ‘can involve work with individuals, small groups of student or whole cohorts of students, and in situations where a subset of students are invited to become partners’ (p.1). different student and academic partnership initiatives can be understood under broader ‘umbrella’ descriptions, with matthews (2016, p. 2), arguing that student engagement has become a blanket term in higher education. kahu (2013, p. 758) further notes the complexity and multi-faceted nature of student engagement stating that, ‘while all agree it is important, there is debate over the exact nature of the construct; a key problem is a lack of distinction between the state of engagement, its antecedents and its consequences’. kandiko & buckley (2016, p.3) identify the combined use of the term ‘student engagement’ with reference to ‘student voice’ and zepke & leach’s (2010) conceptual organiser, enables some commonalities and shared values of what is seen as ‘positive’ or ‘best practice’ within student engagement. in accordance with the work of curran (2017), themes embody personal development and the enhancement of the learning climate. such variation across the models, both within the curriculum and across extra-curricular activities, were recognised and emphasised as part of our emergent participant narratives. active partnerships had a positive impact on creating and embedding a culture of community for learners on an institutional basis, one that appreciates the value of the student voice and the pedagogic potential for students to be partners, producer and agents for change. however, challenges prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 120 3(1) were also expressed throughout our narratives; some highlighted the need for more guidance and collaboration whilst working as partners / producers; although the lecturers’ workloads was seen as a barrier for this. the importance of time was also raised at both uol and ucbc; with general agreement on the view that ‘you have a lot on all of the time’. the financial cost to students was also discussed but moreso at ucbc where the lack of a system like uros was found to be a potential problem: ‘sometimes it’s cost me money to do these things. although there was a bit of funding available it certainly didn’t cover everything, that got me frustrated if i went to do it and there was nothing for me to do … but i still wouldn’t have it any other way. i’ve loved it.’ (ucbcstudent-1). the pervasive effects of the ‘lincoln formula’ were acknowledged enabling far in excess of a ‘one-off’ student experience: ‘you get a standard package and then you can choose to upgrade it if you want. some attitudes with some students who see it as well why i am doing a presentation or my own research when i’m paying this amount to be taught. they want to sit with the lecturer telling them what to do, so to make that benefit if i am going to use it anyway i may as well relish it and enjoy every bit of it’ (uolstudent-1). all narratives contained references to the enhanced knowledge and understanding of the research process that emerged from involvement with sapr/cc. in uol, references were made to varied opportunities for student participation in initiatives and the different forms in which such opportunities emerged: ‘the first few things i thought of were, the student engagement research where there was an advert on blackboard to be involved as the student in creating and designing and taking part in research through the university with lecturers; the modules in the first and second years where you are given the choice for applying research to do a critical analysis of an article or 5 this institutional support offers bursaries of up to £1000 to support collaborative work between lincoln students and staff on different research projects (lincoln academy of to go out and conduct your own interview and practice through that way’ (uol-student-1). student research opportunities at uol have been provided by the uros scheme, an initiative similar to research bursary arrangements at other institutions such as imperial college and the university of warwick.5 bursaries can be given to projects that are part of a larger programme or for one-off small-scale projects, on the condition that they are undertaken by an undergraduate student working under the supervision of a member of academic staff. research by hagyard & watling (2012) recognised the significant impact from uros, not only in developing students’ research skills but also for increased understanding of their disciplines. students further recognised uros as a core element of student as producer: ‘i took part in uros, a student as producer led approach, where it’s your idea and you get the opportunity to run with it you have a lecturer who is educated in that field, to lead you and make sure you are doing the right thing.’ (uol-student-1) conversations highlighted the potential nuances within the two institutions and the greater opportunities made available to uol students as a result of well-established institutional support. such prospects were not routinely available at ucbc although the teaching development grant from the hea provided some progress. students at uol presented noticeable differences in their narratives, compared with those through cc at ucbc. the wider range of opportunities meant the research process was more practised, with students acknowledging their increased confidence from these experiences. there was more familiarity with specific parts of the research process, such as creating interview schedules, conducting interviews and completing ethics forms. the opportunities at uol meant students felt more equipped to apply their skills: ‘we are prepared by doing the research, and having a go ourselves, to understand how other lecturers’ / learning and teaching, 2018: https://lalt.lincoln.ac.uk/aboutlalt/undergraduateopportunities-research-scheme/) https://lalt.lincoln.ac.uk/aboutlalt/undergraduate-opportunities-research-scheme/ https://lalt.lincoln.ac.uk/aboutlalt/undergraduate-opportunities-research-scheme/ prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 121 3(1) researchers / tutors do it and get to the conclusions they do’ (uolstudent-1). at ucbc, the students’ conversations revealed a conscious approach to their research and a need to identify tangible outputs; such as acquiring extra contacts and additional dissemination of outputs: ‘for me it’s giving me something to show somebody. instead of a paper dissertation, some of my research is going to be something you can see … it’s going to be slightly different’ (ucbc-student-1). the impact of sapr on curriculum development at uol was expressed several times: ‘giving ideas on where things could be changed in the curriculum or kind of overseeing proposed new modules or changes to modules and giving the students view on that’ (uolalumnus-1). examples demonstrated the students’ appreciation of their views being recognised and actioned, such as when commenting on modules with distinct assessment burdens. such experiences support the ethos for sapr to be embedded across uol in all its strategies, including curriculum design and practices that involve students in the delivery of its courses (neary, et al, 2014). the conversations at ucbc referred to a student mentoring scheme where volunteers play an effective part in the general management of a course. this system takes place in the summer months where volunteers are placed in support groups of two or three students on a lower level, to help them proceed with the course. the scheme has found some success in stimulating a sense of community within these groups: ‘i also did student mentoring and i absolutely love this role. it was mainly about giving reassurance to folk over faced with the amount of work they had to do… it was great seeing peoples’ confidence grow as once they’d achieved one a goal they’d feel better about others’ (ucbc-student-1). this is not the proactive curriculum design as evidenced at uol, but there was collaborative development of the curriculum at ucbc, tending to occur through bureaucratic processes for (re)validations and periodic reviews rather than a central principle in its teaching and learning strategies. softer skills associated with sapr / cc were referred to in the narratives, with the influence within the classroom being expressed at both institutions. with reference to the positive effects on the learning process, perceptions of improved confidence were found within four main themes of this study. the emphasis in sapr / cc for actively developing the undergraduate role was valued, with participants expressing views such as ‘being a better learner’, one that learns ‘from doing new things’. such beliefs were sustained by having confidence in their abilities for learning through reflective practice, underpinned the development of this assurance. narratives addressing employability from the ucbc participants illustrated the primacy of work-based learning in cc. students had initially worked for a support organisation for victims of domestic abuse and for a youth offending team and both conversations referred to options ‘snowballing’ with subsequent work following other activities. when questioned on the initial driver behind this progress, the support from institutions was apparent: ’there was a volunteer fair and i met many different voluntary organisations that were very approachable they’d say ‘just come and see us for a day and see how you feel’. this meant there was no pressure and no-body was wasting too much time, the benefits can be amazing’ (ucbc-student-1). all participants believed their skillsets had developed as a result of holding focus groups, making professional presentations and report writing. however, this acquisition of benefits was accompanied with some perceptions of risks: ‘it can take a bit of getting used to, takes time but i think at times it is scary because you are putting yourself out there doing new things… it means you are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone … looking back now as something that is working, its good it helps in that once you get into work you are presented with new things, i need you to do this, not would you like to try this’ (uol-alumnus-1). prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 122 3(1) 6. conclusion the discourses in this paper present a narrative of students’ views of student engagement, research skills, employability and curriculum design within research engaged teaching models. the students’ perceptions of where they place themselves within these models are presented in the dialogue highlighting core values. to summarise, the core themes identified in the collaborative conversations all recognised the importance of partnerships and shared relationships between academic and students. the value of student voice was focal, with participation in student engagement opportunities positively impacting upon the confidence of students. greater empowerment for students was also illustrated through such participation, with students seeing themselves as partners, and in some cases producers of knowledge (particularly through co-producing/presenting roles). key values within the models, sapr, cc, and sapa all recognise collaboration as central, shown in the conversations with students identifying as being active participants. the conversations highlight student engagement as a key part of practice, often representing sapa rather than sapr in reality. the application of the projects and their associated pedagogic models across ucbc and uol importantly embrace similar principles in their examples of good practice. looking to the future, it is with the acknowledgment of such core principles that the breadth offered by such models is clear. by adapting core values of collaboration, active participation and partnerships between academics and students opportunities can be facilitated in varied forms, adapted to different institutions. the study concludes that the role for both higher education and cbhe institutions in facilitating such experiences is vital to investing in students as partners / producers, with both providing demonstrable benefits for both student and academics. the student narratives have illustrated how institutions can benefit from such investment when it comes to curriculum design and employability two fundamental responsibilities of all contemporary higher education providers. this project would not have been possible without the work and enthusiasm from the participants at uol and ucbc. they have shown how conversations can provide greater understanding, with their experiences demonstrating how simply ‘talking’ results in voices that should be listened to for continuing pedagogical development. prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 123 3(1) 7. disclosure statement the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world’s largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 9. to cite this article: strudwick, j; & johnson, p. (2020). learning from collaborative ‘conversations’ on the students as producer pedagogic model: students’ views. prism, 3(1), 113-125 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301201 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism strudwick & johnson (2020) prism 124 3(1) 10. references ahmed, a., aadil, a., vanmaaren, j.,barrington, j., merritt, o and ansillo, k. 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https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/role-students-pedagogical-research-projects-subjects-participants-partners-consultants https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/role-students-pedagogical-research-projects-subjects-participants-partners-consultants http://advance.sagepub.com/articles/student_engagemebt_resarch_2010-2018_continuity%20_and%20_emergence/7871984 http://advance.sagepub.com/articles/student_engagemebt_resarch_2010-2018_continuity%20_and%20_emergence/7871984 http://advance.sagepub.com/articles/student_engagemebt_resarch_2010-2018_continuity%20_and%20_emergence/7871984 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1469787410379680 prism journal prism early view (2023) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article722 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article722 1 © 2023 prism, issn: 2514-5347 the slow learner: feeling our way to thinking about lifelong learning derek barter department of adult and community education, maynooth university, ireland (derek.barter@mu.ie). received: 26/10/2022 accepted for publication: 05/02/2023 published: 21/08/2023 abstract this article is a critique of the current formal education system as a construct for consumerism, where the value of learning is geared towards increasingly limited instrumentalist ends. it considers alternative ways of educating the population to prepare for a century of disruption and upheaval as we transition from an unsustainable fossil fuel-based economy, where competition and acquisition are lauded to a less frenetic, but ultimately more egalitarian reflective future. it argues against the shortterm myopia of credentialism, determined by election cycle politics and competitive advantage, and instead posits a humanistic vision for community education and teaching innovation that takes the longue durée regard of the history of human relations into account. accepting gellner’s exo-socialisation model for mass education in the industrial age, it asks what will replace this in a post-industrial world. beginning with the principles of widening participation and social inclusion as the starting points for a socially just education, it argues that relationships are central for emancipatory education to take effect. it uses two programmes offered by maynooth university’s department of adult and community education, the communiversity and the critical skills modules: a social analysis of everyday life, as examples of programmes that have inclusion, equality and diversity, and social justice as core principles in their modus operandi. here participation, dialogue, reflection, and a willingness to engage offer hope for an intergenerational lifelong learning approach to education in the twenty-first century that is ‘thought led’ rather than ‘market driven’. keywords: access, capabilities approach, communiversity, emancipatory learning, inclusion, instrumentalism, lifelong learning, widening participation 1. what is the purpose of education? education should not set out to diminish the person; it should not harm or cause pain, it should not reduce, belittle or demean. it should not coerce the person into doing, or causing to be done, anything that will have a negative effect upon the person, their community or their society. yet education does these things to people all the time. as part of a capitalist https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article722 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article722 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:derek.barter@mu.ie https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3829-2638 prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 2 early view economy, it initiates us into an economic system that acts against our best interests in favour of short-term wealth and material accumulation. from an early age, it subjugates the imagination into conformity for the sake of efficiency, and stifles enquiry into other possible ways of being in the world for everincreasing productivity (greene, 1995). this paper will ask if the western education model is providing students with the knowledge, skills and confidence that they need to survive and thrive in the twenty-first century (giroux, 2022). it will consider the mission of the university as this is currently understood in a time when policy makers look askance at subjects and disciplines that are deemed impractical, esoteric and ineffective in terms of employment, opting instead to be ‘market led’ without referencing the fact that in ireland at least the market has led to a banking crisis, a housing crisis, and globally to the brink of environmental disaster in the shape of the looming climate catastrophe. an education that is solely beholden to increased productivity and enhanced income potential is an education that makes us all poorer. as the introduction to social media is established in the very earliest years of infancy (reid chassiakos, et al., 2016; smyth, 2022), exposure to a consumerist discourse inflates desire and entitlement ever earlier in the child’s consciousness. the collusion of a functionalist education system that underpins a capitalist narrative of success as one of material acquisition and possession should, in the present era of environmental crisis, at least raise questions and prompt policy makers and civil servants involved in decision making around education to reflect. in ireland 83% (80% men and 86% women) of students complete second-level education as compared with 79% on average across oecd countries (oecd, 2019). the trend of direct progression from second-level to third-level education is also above average (oecd, 2020). this has had unintended consequences to pushing people into professional employment and away from trades and services, which now face labour shortages. in the policy paper progressing a unified tertiary system for learning, skills and knowledge (government of ireland, 2022), the irish department of further and education, research, innovation and science is currently attempting to rebalance the educational landscape to meet the ongoing economic and societal demands in construction, retail, hospitality and the caring professions by diverting an increasing number of young people into further education and training courses and apprenticeships (2022). education has become equated with skills acquisition. this paper will make a case for a fundamental restructuring of the education system away from a frontloaded jobs-oriented instrumentalist-based form of learning towards a lifelong learning, strengths-based ‘capabilities approach’ (sen, 1992). the capabilities approach, first proposed in the 1980s by the economist amartya sen, is based on two assumptions. first, that freedom to achieve wellbeing is of primary moral importance. second, that freedom to achieve well-being must be understood in terms of people with capabilities. in other words, their real opportunities to do, and be, what they value (walker & unterhalter, 2007). it will argue that the current education system is a hazing process whereby certain academic subjects and disciplines are apotheosised for their earning potential, while devaluing what has been a core purpose of education or at least university education up until recently, as the ‘effort to make capable and cultivated human beings’ (mill, 1867, p. 4). it will also argue that the way out is through a real commitment to lifelong learning where adult and community education pedagogical practice can encourage and instil confidence in the learner, and by extension the community of learners, to face the great challenges that lie ahead over the course of the coming century. 2. instrumentalism in 2011, maynooth university (mu) in ireland set up a working group to respond to the national strategy for higher education to 2030 (government of ireland, 2011), more commonly referred to as the hunt report. the hunt report was drafted in the aftermath of the banking crisis and economic crash of 2008 in ireland, and although it takes the 2000 white paper learning for life (government of ireland, 2000) as its point of departure, its tone is much less prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 3 early view idealistic. it is redolent with the shock of the crash, the political and social repercussions of the bank guarantee,1 and is determined to future-proof the irish higher education system for the benefit of ‘ireland inc.’ what emerged from the hunt report was a greater influence for business and industry within the education sector. however, it also held out the promise of widening participation and civic engagement, two of the central platforms for access in education. one immediate development was the springboard initiative2 informed by the expert group on future skills needs (egfsn). given that ireland is a small open economy that relies heavily on its ability to attract foreign direct investment (fdi) from transnational conglomerates like facebook (meta), google, tiktok etc., the skills concentrated on science technology engineering and maths (stem) subjects, conversion courses in information communication technology (ict), big data analytics, supply chain, and export sector-led courses were, and still are, given precedence. for indigenous industries, tourism and hospitality were emphasised. in the years following 2008, ireland’s economic survival was dependent upon the so-called troika of the european commission, international monetary fund (imf), and the european central bank (ecb). severe austerity measures were imposed on the country, and lifelong learning and funded part-time programmes were directed towards labour market activation (one exception to this was the communiversity programme which is discussed later). the discourse surrounding education and higher education at this time leant heavily towards the ‘knowledge economy,’ ‘skills and employability,’ 1 the bank guarantee officially called the credit institutions (financial support) act 2008 provided a €440 billion guarantee to six irish banks to prevent possible collapse of ireland’s economy as a result of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. 2 springboard+ is a government initiative offering free and heavily subsidised courses at certificate, degree, and masters level leading to qualifications in areas where there are employment opportunities in the economy. these areas include ict, engineering, green skills, manufacturing and construction, among many others. there are over 300 courses available for 2022-23, the majority of which are flexible and part-time. https://springboardcourses.ie/. ‘earning potential,’ ‘career choice,’ and the promotion of stem above all else. this understanding still prevails, and it is little wonder, therefore, that instrumentalism (mezirow, 1990) is on the increase in ireland just as it is in the uk (duckworth & smith, 2018). in ireland, the eu-funded human capital initiative july stimulus 2020 pushed micro-credentials as a way to drive up the country’s low participation rates in lifelong learning (solas, 2020).3 these are again overwhelmingly skills focussed. the hunt report recommended more influence for business and industry in education. the mu response had one overarching theme which can be summed up as: higher education institutions should welcome ceos at faculty meetings when philosophers are invited into the boardroom. the response sought to encourage the university to engage with the capitalist economy in a way that would include calculations that go beyond shareholder dividends and profit margins, to make decisions that have some element of moral and ethical considerations inbuilt. it asks that the university asserts itself as a place of thoughtful contemplation that sometimes has to be critical of the status quo, and the received wisdom that market is always correct. the risks that face us as a species threaten to overwhelm an instrumentalist educational paradigm (duckworth & smith, 2018) predicated on perpetual economic growth. education in the twenty-first century must allow for thinking and reflection, for history, philosophy and politics as well as other disciplines from arts and humanities to be promoted in schools (earle et al., 2017). critical disciplines such as these move the conversation on from the applied sciences, solution focused education 3 solas was established in 2013 under the further education and training act as an agency of the department of further and higher education, research, innovation and science. it replaced the previous skills and training in further education agency fás whose expenditure in the celtic tigre era had brought that organisation into disrepute. it also absorbed the vocational education committees (vecs) as the reconfigured education and training boards (etbis). the etbis emphasised their training remit above education. currently, lifelong learning is measured by solas using the eu approved labour force survey (lfs) to calculate the share of adults aged 25-64 who had engaged in formal and/or nonformal learning. prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 4 early view ‘we have the technology so we can do it’, to a deliberative, slower form of learning that asks the moral question ‘but should we?’ even to ask such a question could be seen as radical in its naivety, but to make a choice not to merely go along is in some sense a political act. 3. access any discussion about social justice education inevitably turns its attention to access as part of the inclusion and widening participation agenda (boud in osborne and crossan, 2007). great strides have been made in ireland in terms of access since the first national access plan in 2015. however, access itself is not an unproblematic idea (rowan, 2019). access means different things to different people at different times of their life. for instance, access in relation to school children often assumes that it is about getting children from so called ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds into higher education. access for people with a whole range of disabilities means an educational psychological or medical diagnosis is referenced against some notional norm, whereby ‘less than’, or at least ‘not the same as’, is taken into account. access for mature students is often thought of as ‘second chance’, to make up for something they missed out on first time around. access within the migrant community, especially those who are caught up in the asylum process, means something akin to meeting one’s basic needs. in all cases though, access is associated with ‘difference’. this assumption is loaded with negative connotations indicating ‘deficiency’ of some sort in either the individual or the community they come from. this is an enormous barrier to the very people that access programmes are set up to engage, and in that sense, becomes exclusionary. people in the process of addiction recovery often speak about their recovery as ‘an inside job’; the same sentiment applies to members of underserved and disadvantaged communities. perhaps the language of access needs to be looked at and the lexicon of lifelong learning be embraced and 4 coolock is a parish in north dublin with a high number of social housing and council housing and is considered an promoted (osborne et al., 2007) as the starting point of any discussion around education. however, changing the vocabulary is not enough; to change the discourse, we also need to examine the practices of education and move towards a capabilities approach. if access is thought about with capabilities in mind, then the demand that the university becomes more embedded and relevant in the lives of people beyond the campus walls enables us to pursue a form of democratic and emancipatory education with the population at large. a socially just education will be one that is shaped by, and responds to, the communities and individuals that participate in the conversation. the conversation will recognise the human relations embedded in every learning encounter, and the conversation will be open-ended and open to all (rowan, 2019). these are the principles to which both the communiversity and critical skills modules a social analysis of everyday life, reflective practice and experiential learning, adhere. 4. the communiversity and critical skills a social analysis of everyday life the communiversity is a three-way partnership established in the republic of ireland in 2011 between maynooth university (mu), communitybased organisations in the form local development companies, and the public library service. for each partner there are particular policy demands that come under the general headings of social inclusion, widening participation, community development and capacity building. it operates in underserved communities and areas designated in terms of higher education as being ‘socially disadvantaged’. the communiversity in coolock4 has been operating since 2011. i have been delivering critical skills modules in the university since 2016. my idea for critical skills was predicated on the understanding of the sense of bewilderment that many, if not all, new students to the university have upon entry. the most difficult thing for first year student to do in the early part of the semester is to get them to engage and open up. area disadvantage according to the pobal deprivation index. prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 5 early view a criticism that is often levelled at students coming straight from secondary school is that they are not prepared, or do not know how, to study at third level. there is a tendency on behalf of academics to think of students as needing to be deprogrammed. in fact, what they need is the space to decompress, to unwind and allow themselves to become themselves. both programmes rely on dialogue, discussion and play as the basis for learning, and content is coproduced and co-created. 5. vignette in early march 2022 i held a critical skills class for first year undergraduates, and a critical thinking workshop as part of the coolock communiversity on the same day. this is a composite reflection of what happened in both groups. to start both classes, i asked the participants to write a haiku: a what? a haiku, a traditional japanese poem. i can’t write poetry. no way, i couldn’t write poetry. a poem not a chance. what’s it called? a haiku. what is it? a poem of 17 syllables. 5 then 7 then 5. you can write about the weather, nature, the seasons, how you are feeling, whatever. i couldn’t write a poem. who says so? i was no use at writing in school. this isn’t school. i’ll give you 10 minutes to write it and see how you get on. it won’t be any good. let us be the judge of that. [i set the timer and the clock ticks by. the look of pain on peoples’ faces]. nearly there, two minutes and then you will get a chance to read them out to the rest of the group. what?!! ah here, i didn’t sign up for this. ok, who wants to go first? [silence]. i’ll go. it’s not very good though. why do you say that? we haven’t heard it yet, let us be the judge. [the poem is beautiful, and everybody claps spontaneously. the girl is beaming]. can we hear it again? and again, one more time. everyone agrees that was really lovely. who’s next? i’ll go to get it out of the way. [again, everyone is enthralled.] great stuff let’s hear it again. i only managed to write two lines. we’ll have a go then at adding the last line. and we did and she was happy. who wants to go next? i didn’t get it. i did it wrong. did you write something? yes. ok, can we hear it? i don’t know how to write a poem that is like this, this is not very good. everyone clapped. i said there are too many syllables in the last line (ignoring the rest, form, like all rules, is there to be broken). the look on her face was heart-breaking. then a classmate said ‘take out ‘not.’’ she said it again: i don’t know how to write a poem that is like this this is very good. cheers, claps, smiles and laughter all around. the question that the exercise provoked for me from both groups, differentiated only by the age profile and the locations of the two classes (one on campus and one in a library), is ‘what has our education system done to us that makes us feel like we have failed before we have even started?’ the language of ‘i can’t’ or ‘i wasn’t any good’ translates into ‘not good enough so why bother’. this feeling of inadequacy can follow us for the rest of our lives. here is the locus of dis-engagement from education, and the manqué of access policies. the recognition that feeling, learning, and thinking are part of the same process (bion, 1967) can liberate us from the tyranny of the past failures and the damning effects of memory. connecting with ‘emotional energy’ as mullineaux puts it ‘the integration of feeling with thinking – [is] a vital component in the learning prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 6 early view process’ (2008, p. 90). kincheloe argues, that we need to be able to create alternative educations ‘grounded on a critical theoretical commitment to social justice, anti-oppressive ways of being, and new forms of connectedness and radical love’ (kincheloe, 2008, p. 6). this is where social justice education can act as an antidote to the limiting structures and processes of knowledge transfer and skills acquisition. shortly after these classes i met an academic from a university in the czech republic who spoke rather despairingly about the current state of education: ‘the young people nowadays don’t study, they don’t go to the library and get a book out, they don’t remember anything, they just go to their phones and look it up. and they don’t think, they feel.’ he’s not wrong. i replied that ‘feelings come first, it’s feelings that determine behaviour’. traditionally, universities as places of rational discourse, scientific endeavour, and evidencebased research don’t do feelings very well; however not recognising the fact that human beings are to a great extent driven by our unconscious desires and primal emotions misses a crucial element in the learning process. ivan illich, in his famous work de-schooling society (1970), can be accused of being unrealistically dismissive of the established education system. however, the idea that institutionalised ‘education’, and the universal application of it across the globe is an unquestioning good must, for any critical thinker, be questioned. there are benefits to education, but if the sole purpose is to reproduce a workforce for an economic system that relies on reproducing repressive regimes of thought and suppressing emotions, with the purpose of perpetual economic growth, then this is not good. if the purpose of education in the twentieth century was to educate idiots (in the classical athenian sense of individuals who disconnected from the polis/community) with profit as their main motivation, then we have to ask what is the purpose of education in the twenty first century? gellner (1983) suggests that mass education, or exo-socialisation in the modern industrial nation state, is the vehicle for cultural transmission and individual identity made manifest in the nation state. that being the case, then, it is to be expected that the dominant economic philosophy of the state administration will prevail. however, when the industrial base of modern society – that of ‘highpowered technology and the expectancy of sustained growth’ (p.33) – is called into question, then the education system that it supports must also be held up for examination. it has become apparent that recognising our inter-dependence and relationships with all kinds of people and the environment must take precedence. this means educating people to expect less in terms of material possessions, and to recognise our duties to each other as a species and to our planet as custodians for future generations (ryan, 2009). in order to do this, according to burns, we must begin ‘a process of unlearning our unsustainability and relearning our entanglement with the world’ (2018, p. 278). in a social justice model of education, environmental education (mullineaux, 2008), alongside the critical disciplines from the arts and social sciences, would be given room on the curriculum and valued as much as any of the disciplines with high earning potential. in fact, this very discourse of education and earnings must be reflected on and held up to scrutiny. the design of our current education system is to establish and solidify boundaries in early years through a more abstract form of learning than that of the pure experiential type that all humans experience when they come into the world. it sets up the type of learning that is about content acquisition, and the beginning of a selection process based on a set of values determined by economic forces. a feedback loop is established that starts to rank knowledge by its added value to the economy with maths and science at the apex. the shift in emphasis for the learner from one of relationships to one of control and selection becomes internalised in school. the natural inclination for the child is to be a philosopher, a seeker and an explorer. early life is all about taking risks, crawling, probing, reaching, tasting. these philosophers/explorers are slowly gelded (gellner, 1983, p.36) from climbing, skipping, tumbling and falling animated beings, into clerks, by denying their bodies in the restraining environment of the classroom into sedentary receptacles of second-hand knowledge (freire, 1970). furthermore, through what skinner termed operant conditioning (1974), the child’s behaviour is modified through a series of rewards and prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 7 early view punishments which bestow a sense of achievement or failure. punishment has shifted from the body to the mind. behaviour modification takes place in response to the ‘aversive stimuli’ (skinner, 1974) of competitive learning, with the inevitable winners and losers being drawn into the learning experience. hence the environment for self-imposed exclusion is introduced as the loser gets ‘knocked out’ early and often from the competition. feelings of shame and inadequacy then become associated with learning. skinner would go further to say that ‘…behaviour does not change because [the student] feels anxious; it changes because of the aversive contingencies which generate the condition felt as anxiety. the change in feeling and the change in behaviour have a common cause’ (1974, p. 68). where disenchantment leads, disengagement follows. i have observed the maths wall of fame in second class in a primary school where the same five or six children made it onto the gallery every week, just rotating their positions. pupils who try their best, but who don’t achieve the honour roll, give up and disengage from the subject at a relatively young age. in conversation with a colleague who delivers the maths component of the froebel teacher training in maynooth university, such unintended undermining is commonplace in maths games and exercises where he described ‘speed in answering the question correctly is all that matters.’ speed and conformity these are the hallmarks of success in a stifling system of education (ross in rancière, 1991, p. xx). my colleague sees this as a failure on the part of the teaching profession as the knockout nature of these games excludes the slower learner from the subject before they ever get a chance to become familiar with it. opting out of something that brings no reward, but rather compounds a sense of repeated failure and its accompanying shame, seems very wise. shame demotivates the learner and distorts ‘normal’ development. coping strategies such as hiding, avoiding and deflecting become associated with learning thus creating a minus-valency (hafsi, 2005) where education is repulsed. repairing this relationship is part of the transformative process (mezirow, 1990; 1991; 2000; mezirow et al., 2009) that adults experience when they re-engage with education in later life. unfortunately, due to the instrumentalist nature of government policies towards lifelong learning, this aspect of learning is for the most part ignored when it comes to funding, unless it is specifically targeted at marginalised groups such as people in recovery from drug addiction or mental health conditions. if it was to be recognised as applying to the general population, it holds out great potential to move beyond instrumentalism. the fault does not necessarily lie in the individual teacher, nor in the profession of teaching, but rather in the structures of education and the simplistic goal to serve the economy. to reorient education into a sustainable humanistic model requires some deliberation about the job specification of the teacher in the twenty first century, and the nature of teaching at different life stages. reconfiguring the teaching profession and the culture of education is not beyond our ken. it starts with looking critically at how we relate to each other as human beings, and what it is we want to do, to employ our social imagination as greene puts it (1995) for the cause of a more socially just form of education. the acquisition of knowledge arising from the banking method of teaching (freire, 1970) facilitates socio-economic, cultural selection through a series of tests and exams that merely reinforces the competitive aspect of learning. competition for high points, good grades for elite courses, medicine, veterinary, it, business and economics ensure that intellectual hegemony is maintained, and the class consensus for individual ownership and wealth accumulation is reproduced. what gets lost is ‘the process of becoming one’s self’ which charles, interpreting winnicott and bion, says, ‘is much more important than ‘receiving’ knowledge (2004, p.15). to ‘know thyself’, and consequently understand the decisions and actions that we take, surely is the ultimate goal of education. to know thyself is central to sen’s capabilities approach (conlin, 2019), just as it is for critical skills – a social analysis of everyday life and the communiversity. 6. capabilities and critical thinking prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 8 early view capabilities is understood as ‘alternative things a person can do or be’ (yaqub, 2009, p.437). as naz (2020, p.316) points out: sen expanded the notion of human well-being beyond consumption and developed better measures of poverty and inequality. he has introduced a different view of human economic agents having some intrinsic worth rather than being just rational utility maximisers. his notion of well-being also encompasses development of human potential by increasing the options available to individuals in any society. sen asserted that when making normative evaluations about a valuable life, the focus should be on what people are able to be and to do, and not just on the material resources that they are able to consume. education using capabilities, then, is a strengthsbased approach, and is seen as the vehicle and process by which the individual can achieve this desired outcome. it critiques the current western model of education for establishing ‘acquisition and competition’ instead of ‘cooperation and sharing’ as core to its mission. curiously, every year since i began teaching critical skills a social analysis of everyday life, i have asked students to consider the notion of ‘success’. overwhelmingly fairness, justice, rights to a dignified life, and respect come out as the most common answers. idealism is, perhaps, to be expected at the age of these students in their late teens, but it is a virtue that can be too easily dismissed. these ideals are also emerge in the discussions that take place in the communiversity amongst older students. this objective of the communiversity remains to engage people who regard higher education as distant, alien and unobtainable, in a university level course in a secure, familiar and local environment for individual personal development, and capacity building at a community level. as mentioned above, the idea for the communiversity developed out of necessity brought on by the economic crash of 2008. the conditions that prevailed in ireland in the first number of years of the programme were those of severe austerity. the section of society hardest hit were the so-called areas of disadvantage where those in which the services of local development companies (ldc) were most heavily relied on. ldcs implement community development programmes on behalf of the state for social inclusion, education and employment schemes. the communiversity was an attempt to continue with the educational and community development work that the department of adult and community education (dace) in maynooth university had been involved with for nearly forty years up to that point. what made the communiversity different at that time, and still to this day, is that it runs counter to the labour market activation skills acquisition instrumentalism, and encourages dialogue, participation, curiosity and reflection (barter & hyland, 2020). partnership and outreach are the two cornerstones of this initiative. as publicly funded bodies, each partner has a responsibility to implement government policy in the areas of their expertise. the public library service seeks, in our public libraries 2022 inspiring, connecting and empowering communities (government of ireland, 2018), closer involvement with the local population. for the community-based partners, the strategic goals determined by the eu funded social inclusion and community activation programme (sicap) – especially goal 2 for supporting individuals to engage with lifelong learning – are increasingly informed by more frequent contact between local community adult education co-ordinators and the university. so partnership is crucial, and the value of sharing public services where policy outcomes converge is an excellent example of joined up thinking. in purely economic terms this adds value to each of the partner’s output and productivity at low cost. more importantly, however, the communiversity is about connecting people in a learning environment where social, economic and political phenomena that affect their lives can, with the help of adult education facilitators and academics, be debated and discussed in a meaningful way. it can act as an access gateway, or pre-access programme, for people to enter further and higher education if they wish. for many participants it may be the first point of contact with higher education, or even the concept of lifelong learning. in terms of widening participation (barter and hyland, 2020), the internal psychological and emotional barriers to prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 9 early view access that have been outlined above present the first, and perhaps most intransigent, stumbling blocks that need to be overcome. an advantage that the communiversity has over other learning initiatives is that it is not accredited. this freedom from credentials means that people can use it for non-instrumental reasons, as a meeting place, a place to make friends, a place to talk about complicated issues that are normally the reserve of ‘important people’ on the television, or on other forms of media. it takes everyday issues and presents the work of the academy in a way that is relevant to the lives of the participants in an environment where people are treated as equals and with respect. one of the most positive outcomes from the communiversity has been the establishment of the communiversity network (cn). this is a loose affiliation of community-based adult guidance counsellors, adult and community education coordinators, lifelong learning officers, and local employment staff who work for leader partnership companies, local development companies and local employment offices across ireland. all of the members are committed to social inclusion, some working directly on the sicap, while others seek to move individuals into education, training or employment or as part of an individualised learning/care plan. in 2021 the cn submitted a document to the consultation process of the national access plan 2022-2028 called ‘access all areas’ (author et al, 2021). its starting point is a quote from theodore zeldin which has become the guiding principle of the communiversity ‘…there is room for a new sort of university that is not a ghetto for the young, but a place where all generations can exchange experience, culture and hope’ (zeldin, 2012, p. 31). education for the twenty-first century must involve the notion of living with uncertainty and insecurity. recognising and analysing these unstable states of being is the surest form of dealing with them and giving any hope of overcoming the external forces of lack, scarcity and reduction that can mean liberation. 5 a pilot communiversity is being delivered in 2022-2023 in pobalscoil neasain on dublin’s northside for transition year students. modules will include anthropology, the key to creating this kind of education is to take it out of strictly dedicated educational institutions, schools, colleges and universities, and bring it back to into the community where it ripples out through webs of relationships (watts in carlson & maniacci, 2011) to be animated in everyday life. partnership with likeminded organisations such as libraries and community development companies can achieve much more than the mere conferring on a qualification. as one member of the communiversity network put it: lifelong learning opportunities like maynooth university’s communiversity foster a culture of learning which has far reaching benefits for the wider community. subjects usually associated exclusively with third level institutions, such as psychology, philosophy, and economics, are explored in a more informal environment such as the local library. such initiatives help to demystify third level education and help to break down the barriers of esoteric terminology and formalised assessment. the programme…has far reaching implications; concepts conventionally associated with higher learning are discussed and shared and with family and friends. similar initiatives for younger demographics (e.g. secondary schools and youth services) would help to further demystify third level education. we find there is great community interest but a lack of funding for such initiatives (antoinette patton cn). in ireland we have an opportunity that is made explicit in the national access plan submission for a culture of real lifelong learning to be established from the clichéd ‘cradle to the grave’. the way that second level education in ireland is structured with a transition year break from solely academic subjects between the junior cycle (gcse) and the leaving certificate exit exam, gives some space for teenagers to explore their options in a structured way between employment, volunteering, and exposure to university subjects through the communiversity which would include critical skills5 (barter, et al., 2021). philosophy/critical skills and psychology with one off contributions from disability studies, cultural heritage https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/15456/ prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 10 early view 7. conclusion: hope in unexpected places established elites maintain their position by controlling the discourses of possible ways of being, reproducing aspiring generations with the promise of social mobility, and the rewards of wealth and status that follow. education is a powerful tool in perpetuating hegemony (bourdieu, 1992). dismantling the structures that reinforce such a ‘natural’ and tried and tested process of teaching and learning will be a difficult task, but with what lies ahead it is one worth attempting. disrupting longtime tried and tested ways of doing things might sometimes be called for to bring about change in the culture of education. for instance, the demographics of the teaching profession in ireland are overwhelmingly single, white, middle-class females coming straight from second-level school (keane & heinz, 2015; heinz & keane, 2018). in other professions, such an inexperienced and limited set of life experiences would been seen as a negative. opening the profession up to people with more experience, and in locations that are not designed to stifle but to excite and innovate, holds out to possibility of making the bond of human relationships central to the learning activity. group teaching and co-facilitation could be considered. employing parents to support teachers in the classroom, especially in early years, could recreate the ‘village’ or community environment of teaching. it could also obviate some of the more traumatic episodes of separation anxiety that everyone who, as a child or with a child who, has cried at the school gate can relate to. such an initiative is not set out to undermine the teaching profession, but to make use of the natural resources, experience and expertise of parents who are the primary educators through socialisation in the home. encouraging parents themselves to become teachers should not be beyond the scope of possibility.6 (including archaeology) and criminology. an evaluation will be carried out at the end of the programme. 6 one of the aims of the turn to teaching project was originally designed to bring adult students including parents into initial teacher training in their local adult education is often praised for the transformational impact it has on a student’s life. it can prompt rediscovery, rebirth, and changing perspective to make new meanings out of long-held assumptions and patterns of behaviour (mezirow, 1990). if we can reimagine education as a process over the life span, and not a series of hurdles in the shape of skills acquisition for credentials, then freedom awaits. this will not be easy as both the individual learner and the institutions have a history of understanding what education has been up to now. exo-socialisation for industrial society as gellner called it (1983, p. 38) will not work for the post-industrial world that is needed for our species survival. we will have to reimagine ourselves as lifelong learners, and higher education institutions and, schools, will have to re imagine themselves as places that are woven into our culture as communities of equals, where we are all engaged in varying pursuits that are part of the same conversation. hope can be found in unexpected places, though, and the emergency of the pandemic provided some evidence that the whole education system – from government departments to schools and universities – can do things differently (barter and grummell, 2021). when faced with the reality that the usual way of working, (i.e. competition through the sorting mechanism of high points in exams for course entry), could not work, then we were free to think differently and to use our ‘social imagination’. the space to do this was created out of necessity, and ‘care’ became a concern for educational institutions and professions. we need to do it again in the face of advances in artificial intelligence, just as our colleague from the czech republic pointed out and the climate crisis. it is time to remind ourselves of just what the primary task of education is: to understand and communicate, and hopefully bring about, a socially just form of communities with the support of the community organisation involved in the communiversity. this element of the initiative did not work out as originally planned, but the potential for such an intervention is still there. prism (2023) barter (2023) prism 11 early view education that is ‘relationship-centred’ (rowan, 2019, p.15) for all our sakes. 8. disclosure statement the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 10. references barter, d & hyland, s (2020) the communiversity: a review of the communiversity: the university for all 2020. project report. maynooth university. 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different school subjects are perceived to be of different value to young people and this value may be realised whilst they are at school or later in life, for example in their home or employment. also, different people place greater value on some subjects compared to other subjects, which can be dependent on their role, experience and age. for example, school leaders and governments suggest explicitly why a subject might be useful to an individual and society through policy documents, such as the english national curriculum, and implicitly through school performance measures, such as the english baccalaureate (ebacc). the ebacc is a performance measure that emphasises the importance of a broad and traditional curriculum (department for education, 2016) focusing on pupils’ progress in five subjects (english, mathematics, science, a humanities subject, and a language), and excludes creative subjects such as music, drama, and design and technology (d&t). an argument for introducing the ebacc was to increase the number of pupils following a broad and balanced curriculum (education committee, 2011) through to the end of secondary school, with the five ebacc subjects providing the essential knowledge all pupils need as part of a general education. justification for these arguments was influenced by hirsch’s (2006) views about cultural literacy and young’s (2008) views about powerful knowledge (department for education, 2011). thus, the ebacc implies that these five subjects are more valued than others due to their epistemology and their role as gatekeeper subjects; suggesting they open more doors to higher education and high earning careers than other subjects. my interest focuses on the criteria for judging the contribution a school subject makes to an individual or to society, and its purpose. as i have already suggested, this topic is particularly relevant in a period where some subjects are perceived to have a greater purpose or value to an individual’s education and to society. 1.2 research aims and questions this article aims to explore and define the value of a school subject by establishing a subject-value framework. in the first part of the article the subject-value framework is built from value theory and views about the purpose of education. in the paper’s second part, the prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 57 framework is tested using the school subject d&t, a non-ebacc subject, and two research questions are posed: 1. can the subject-value framework constructed in the first part of this paper be used to define a school subject’s value? 2. do the values attributed to d&t by a range of people reflect contemporary curriculum policy, economic drivers and other aims of education? d&t is chosen as the focus because there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of pupils studying the subject. this is partly due to the ebacc’s introduction and a revised national curriculum (hardy, 2015a), which led to national campaigns by the subject’s association, d&ta (design and technology association [d&ta]) in 2011 (we believe in design and technology) and 2015 (designed and made in britain...?). the campaigns emphasised d&t’s value to the national economy and an individual’s employment prospects, plus how pupils developed an enterprising attitude because of their d&t lessons and gained transferrable skills (e.g. problem solving, creativity and critical thinking). these campaigns highlighted the ongoing argument about the vocational value of d&t, which has been shown in earlier work by mcculloch, jenkins, and layton (1985), penfold (1988) and wakefield and owen-jackson (2013). due to its dramatic rise and fall between 1990 and 2011, and its contested value and place in the english national curriculum (bell, wooff, mclain, and morrison-love, 2017; hardy, gyekye, and wainwright, 2015; hardy, 2015b; 2016) d&t is the focus of this study. in the next section, value theory is used to construct a subject-value framework that defines the value of a subject. 2. defining the value of a school subject value is a complex construct due to its ‘varied and shifting connotations … in ordinary speech’ (kluckhohn, 1951, p.389). in the context of this complexity, discussing the value of a school subject requires some definition and clarity which, along with a framework, can be used to explore the different forms of value a subject has. rokeach’s (1968; 1973) definition of a value is used by established researchers in education, sociology and psychology (such as feather, 1975; mckernan, 2008; schwartz and bilsky, 1990; wigfield and eccles, 1992), and so the framework is built from his definition of a value: prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 58 [a value is] an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally and socially preferable to alternative modes or end-states of existence. (rokeach, 1968, p.160) his definition focuses on the consequence of holding certain values: ‘… [it is] a standard or criterion for guiding action, for maintaining and developing attitudes towards relevant objects and situations ...’ (1968, p.160). his definition has dual aspect elements: the present (‘a specific mode of conduct’ and ‘how one ought or ought not to behave’), and the future (the ‘end-state of existence’). rokeach disagreed with behaviourists such as hilliard (1950) whose definition of values focused on the value of an object or situation, such as an item of furniture or, in this paper’s context, a school subject. hilliard (1950) determined that ‘value is affectivity occurring in the relational contexture determined by the reaction of an organism to a stimulus object’ where the stimulus object can be a ‘thing, situation, action, occurrence, [or] symbol’ (p.42). when comparing rokeach’s and hilliard’s definitions, hilliard considers that the value a person attributes to an object is a consequence of their affectivity towards the object whereas rokeach considers that a person’s values originate from a belief and lead to an attitude, which might include a feeling or way of behaving towards a thing, situation or object. these two views disagree about the definition of value – the person holds the value (rokeach), or the object (e.g. a school subject) causes the value (hilliard) but affectivity is common to both (hitlin and piliavin, 2004), which is the feeling or response to the object (hilliard) or the feeling or response because of the value (rokeach) (figure 1). prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 59 rokeach’s (1968) definition of a value and relationship with affectivity and the object: from value to object a value causes a behaviour or attitude to occur towards an object hilliard’s (1950) definition of a value and relationship with affectivity and the object: from object to value an object causes affectivity leading to a value figure 1 comparing rokeach's and hilliard's definitions of value rokeach’s definition of value also has a time facet with two elements, the present (‘a specific mode of conduct’ and ‘how one ought or ought not to behave’) and the future (the ‘end-state of existence’). rokeach clarifies: present: ‘i believe that such-and-such mode of conduct is personally and socially preferable’ (1968, p.160), rokeach labels theses as instrumental values; future: ‘i believe that such-and-such an end-state of existence is personally and socially worth striving for’ (1968, p.160), labelled terminal values by rokeach. hilliard’s (1950) definition also includes ‘terminal’ and ‘instrumental’ but defines them differently. an instrumental value is ‘affectivity occurring in the contexture determined by an organism [e.g. person] and an object’ (hilliard, 1950, p.53) – therefore it is context bound; a terminal value is ‘when the object is a last means to the end of affectivity’ (p.53) – not related to time but ‘for its own sake’. hilliard explains his definition using the example of a table (the object) and a person (the organism) who proposes to construct the table using tools (another object). whilst making the table, the tools have an instrumental value, and probably the table in its unfinished form as the person has enjoyment (the affectivity or emotion) as they make it. when the table is complete they will ‘enjoy [the affectivity] the finished table “for its own sake’’ (hilliard, 1950, p.54), which is a terminal value. however, zimmerman (2014, para. 1) uses the term ‘intrinsic value’ rather than terminal value when he argues ‘that the thing has value ‘in itself’ or ‘for its own sake’ or ‘as such’ or ‘in its own right’. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 60 hilliard organises the different elements of a value into a table (table 1), with nine adjectives spread across four sets. he argues that there are twenty-four different modes of values, each one ‘qualified by one adjective from each set and only one’ (p.48); for example: 1. actual direct positive terminal value 2. actual direct indifference terminal value 3. actual direct negative terminal value (hilliard, 1950, p.58) table 1 nine adjectives and four sets (hilliard 1950, p.48) set 1 set 2 set 3 set 4 actual direct positive terminal indifference potential indirect negative instrumental comparing hilliard’s definition with rokeach’s, there are additional features: actual or potential value of the object, which assumes that a person has a value of an object but that the immediacy of the value could be either actual or potential. positive, indifferent or negative affectivity towards the object. rokeach’s theory has the premise that we all have the values in his series, therefore they are positive, but the relative importance of one value to the other may differ for different people. direct and indirect: direct value is when there is an immediate relationship between the object and the person, an indirect value involves an intermediary or ‘catalytic agent’ (hilliard, 1950, p. 56). ‘vicarious enjoyment is an instance of indirect value’ (p.56). schwartz and bilsky (1990), who build on rokeach’s definition, have two further attributes also not considered by rokeach: motivation and interests (figure 2). prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 61 a value that is an individual’s concept of a tran-situational { goal } terminal instrumental goal that expresses { interests } interests concerned with individualistic collectivist both individualistic and collectivist motivational domain { motivational domain } and evaluated on a range of enjoyment…power (7 domains in total) importance from { range } as a guiding principle in his/her life. very important to unimportant figure 2 schwartz and bilsky's mapping sentence to define values formally (1990, p.553) it is worth pausing to explain schwartz and bilsky’s (1990) presentation of their value definition, which is a mapping sentence (guttman in hackett, 2016) and a feature of facet theory. facet theory was devised by louis guttman to understand human activities and knowledge, where the ‘activities are formed of discrete components’ and a facet categorises each discrete component as a set (hackett, 2016, para 10). the mapping sentence ‘is a formal statement of a research domain which includes the respondents, sub-categories of the research content along with the range over which observations will be made, in the structure of a sentence written in normal prose’ (hackett, 2016, para 12) and consists of three types of facets: population (respondent), content, and response (range) (guttman and greenbaum, 1998). consequently, a mapping sentence makes transparent the areas considered within the prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 62 research domain and shows the relationship between the facets, clarifying the boundaries of the study. schwartz and bilsky’s definition of a value has four facets (goal, interests, motivational domain and range) and a respondent (the individual). hilliard’s four sets in table 1 could be relabelled as facets; set 1 becomes importance, set 2 interest, set 3 affectivity and set 4 goal, and the 24 modes of a value each form a different sentence. table 2 combines the four different definitions of a value discussed earlier (rokeach, hilliard, zimmerman, and schwartz and bilsky) into five facets. table 2 facets and attributes of a value facet attributes a. goal 1. terminal (hilliard, rokeach, schwartz and bilsky) 2. intrinsic (zimmerman) 3. instrumental (rokeach, schwartz and bilsky, and hilliard) b. interest 1. direct or indirect effect on the person (hilliard) 2. interests, which might be for the individual, society or both (schwartz and bilsky) c. importance 1. actual or potential (hilliard) 2. range (schwartz and bilsky) d. motivation 1. motivational (schwartz and bilsky) 2. preference to the alternatives (rokeach) e. affectivity 1. positive (hiliard and rokeach), 2. neutral (hilliard) or 3. negative (hilliard) 4. either attitude or choice that results from the value (rokeach) the goal, interest and importance facets contain the content elements of the definition of a value; essentially, they are the definition’s components. motivation and affectivity are response facets, initiated by, or resulting from, the respondent’s affectivity towards the object being attributed with a value. because this study aims to define the values attributed to a subject, not the origins or consequences of the values a respondent attributes to the subject, only the first three facets are necessary for this study’s subject-value framework. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 63 future work could explore the origins (motivation) and consequences (affectivity) of the values an individual attributes to a school subject. the mapping sentence in figure 3 can be presented as the following definition: a value is an individual’s concept of a specific instrumental, terminal or intrinsic goal that is either potentially or actually important to the individual, society or both as a guiding principle. goal { instrumental } a value that is an individual’s concept of a specific terminal goal that is intrinsic importance { potentially } of interest or benefit to actually interests { individual } the society ‘s interests as a guiding principle individual and society figure 3 mapping sentence for definition of a value this definition relates to a school subject if we look at how different authors propose the value of education, or, the purpose of education. young (2014) argues that the acquisition of ‘powerful knowledge’, (knowledge that is specialised and transformative), is different from the instrumental purpose of education, which is to achieve specific qualifications and gain employment. others who also believe a purpose of education is to acquire knowledge, such as hirsch (2006) who influenced the curriculum changes designed by the coalition government in 2013, define knowledge as objective. this instrumental view of education has commonly been translated into a form of schooling built around traditional academic subjects, such as science, maths, history and languages. unlike young, macallister, macleod and pirrie (2013) argue that epistemic excellence ‘should be an educational purpose rather than the only educational purpose’ [emphasis added] (macallister, macleod and pirrie, 2013, p.162), which leads to a definition of the purpose of education with three factors. firstly, that education should support pupils in engaging with traditional and practical knowledge, secondly, pupils’ capacities and prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 64 experiences are important and thirdly, education should promote human flourishing. similarly, reiss and white (2013, p.1) present two aims for education: ‘(1) to lead a life that is personally flourishing; (2) to help others to do so’. these views of the purpose of education relate to the mapping sentence (figure 3) as it suggests that one value of education (the object) is how an individual gaining an education helps not only themselves (the individual) but also others (society). furthermore, it could be argued that reiss and white’s and young’s opinions do relate to the present (instrumental) and to the future (terminal). the intrinsic facet of the goal is implicit in macallister, macleod and pirrie’s and reiss and white’s views that education should promote human flourishing. subjects, then, sit within formal education. this article makes no attempt to challenge this notion but merely accepts that this is the current status quo. so, if the different facets of the purpose of education can be recognised within the mapping sentence it can be proposed that a subject (that sits within formal education’s common structure) will also have these facets. figure 4 is the constructed subject-value framework in the form of a mapping sentence for the definition of a value of school subject. the proposed sentence for defining the values attributed to a school subject is: a value of [school subject] is a person’s concept of the [instrumental/terminal/intrinsic] goal that expresses the [individualistic/collectivist/both individualistic and collectivist] interests that are the positive consequences of individual [the person/someone else] studying [name of school subject] at a secondary school in england. the individual facet adds the tran-situational element from schwartz and bilsky – that it is not only about the respondent studying the named school subject but can be an inferred value from others studying the subject. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 65 goal a person’s concept of the instrumental goal terminal intrinsic interests that expresses the individualistic interests collectivist both individualistic and collectivist individual that are the positive consequences of them studying someone else subject (name of school subject) at school in england figure 4 proposed mapping sentence for defining the values attributed to a school subject this mapping sentence has three well-defined facets: goal, interest and individual. the elements within each facet are clear, with three goal elements, three interest elements and two individual elements. therefore, the mapping sentence has 18 different modes (i.e. 3 x 3 x 2); for example, taking the first element of each facet provides the sentence ‘a person’s concept of the instrumental goal that expresses the individualistic interests that are the positive consequence of them studying [name of school subject] at school in england’. the elements can be used to analyse respondents’ opinions about the value of a school subject and show that a value is not a simple concept but one that is complex (kluckhohn, 1951). in the next section this subject-value framework, presented as a mapping sentence, is tested using values attributed to d&t in interviews with people who have an interest in d&t. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 66 2. methodology this is a constructivist and interpretivist study; my ontological and epistemological positions determined the data collection method and my approach to data analysis, which is discussed in the next section. 2.1 method to identify the values attributed to d&t active interviews were used; active interviews (holstein and gubrium, 1995) are when the interviewer and interviewee co-construct an understanding of the research domain during the interview. in an active interview the interviewer utilises ‘resources, connections and outlooks…encouraging respondents to develop topics in ways relevant to their own experience’ (p.17). therefore, i explored the participant’s values of d&t using a variety questions about their d&t history (e.g. if they study it at school), their current experiences, and any perceived influences from their families. the fluidity of the active interview allowed for an exploration of the participants’ understanding of d&t and their experiences (whether as a pupil, parent or teacher) through the narrative that came from the participants (holstein and gubrium, 1995). furthermore, and given that lovejoy (1950) and rokeach (1968) argue a person's values can only be observed, not heard, the interviews only reveal the participants’ perceptions of their values, therefore the data analysis is an interpretation of the participants’ perception of their values. although facet theory has more commonly been used in quantitative research, hackett (2016) showed that facet theory and the mapping sentence can be used in qualitative studies as ‘provid(ing) a hermeneutically consistent account of a domain of interest’ (para 14). in this study the domain of interest is the values attributed to a school subject, with three facets (goal, interests and the individual), providing themes and sub-themes (the elements within the facet) for analysing the values attributed to a school subject. the study followed bera's (2011) ethical guidelines; permission was obtained from the schools, the pupils’ parents and all participants prior to the interviews taking place; all were made aware of the purpose of the interview and how their data would be used and stored. no identifying features of any institution or participant are given in this paper to maintain participants’ right to anonymity. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 67 twenty-two active interviews, lasting between 15 and 25 minutes, were conducted with a purposive sample representing people who had an interest in education and d&t: pupils (n=12), school senior leaders (n=4), d&t teachers (n=4), d&t trainee teachers (n=3), teacher educators (n=3). three parents were surveyed for their views about the value of d&t using a paper-based survey; as a school senior leader felt that parents would not be willing to come into the school for an interview. the interview questions were designed using the mapping sentence; for example, participants were asked in the interview to talk about why d&t should be taught in schools and how it could be useful to an individual and to society. the schoolbased participants (pupils, d&t teachers and senior leaders) were from two schools in an east midlands city; one a city school, the other in the suburbs of the same city. therefore, results may not be generalisable to all schools in england because rural schools are not represented in these data. one d&t trainee teacher was studying at a university in the same city and two from a north east university; the teacher educators were from the same north east university as the trainees, a london university and a south midlands university. covering several different higher education institutions meant it was possible that a wider range of values would emerge than if all the participants came from only one institution or school (dow, 2014; feather, 1975). the data was collected between march and may 2014 as the impact of the ebacc was being felt by d&t teachers (hardy, 2015a); acknowledging that the data reflected a tumultuous time for d&t when d&t teachers were feeling the need to defend their subject (design and technology association and education for engineering, 2013; design and technology association, 2015). there is no claim here that the participants’ views represent all the values attributed to d&t but they do provide a starting point to explore its value in a consistent manner. 2.2 data coding the data was coded using a grounded theory approach (auerbach and silverstein, 2003). computer analysis data software maxqda was used to manage the large amount of data. there were three coding steps (table 1). in coding cycle 1 all segments of relevant text were highlighted and coded ‘value’. next, each segment was coded with at least one ‘goal’ code (coding cycle 2) and one ‘interest’ code (coding cycle 3), which corresponds to the interest and goal facets from the mapping sentence. the individual facet was included because some prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 68 participants had not studied d&t at school, therefore the values they attributed to d&t are because of someone else studying d&t. the initial assumption was that there would be a maximum of nine sentences (three goals multiplied by three interests). table 3 data analysis coding cycle activity maxqda label coding cycle 1 identify value code = ‘value’ coding cycle 2 identify goal type code = ‘instrumental’ or ‘terminal’ or ‘intrinsic’ coding cycle 3 identify interest type code = ‘individualist’ or ‘collectivist’ after the first coding cycle 436 segments were identified as a value across the 22 data sets. this did not indicate that there were 436 different values attributed to d&t by the participants as repeating themes occurred. 3. testing the subject-value framework in this section the first research question is answered can the mapping sentence constructed in the first part of this paper be used to define a school subject’s value? -by examining whether the elements within each facet were sufficient. essentially, do the three elements in the two facets (goal and interests) provide a hermeneutically consistent account of the value of a school subject? 3.1 goals in the second coding cycle (table 3) the different goals a value might meet were identified: • the positive consequence in the future (terminal); • the positive consequence now (instrumental); • the positive consequence that d&t can have ‘for its own sake’ (zimmerman, 2014, p.1) (intrinsic). some segments could not be coded with only one of these three goals, and four additional elements were added. thus, showing that the subject-value framework in section 3 does not provide a hermeneutically consistent account of the goal facet. however, when the four new prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 69 elements were added all 436 segments from coding cycle 1 were able to be coded with one of the seven elements. • instrumental goals were commonly utilitarian. for example, ‘you could make clothes if you wanted to’ (pupil). • terminal goals were for the future, and commonly utilitarian. for example, ‘if i wanted to do it later in life you can make dresses and stuff and then you'd be able to pick up skills that you wouldn't have been able to do because you haven't learnt them before. so, it'd be more helpful for later in life’ (pupil). • a value that had an intrinsic goal was not necessarily time-bound, that is either for now or the future, but suggested a feeling of satisfaction or enjoyment. for example, ‘it’s just nice to be able to be creative and when you can say i designed that, i built that, there's a lot of pride in technology’ (d&t teacher). • values that were both instrumental and terminal had the idea that the value contributed both to today and the future. sometimes this was explicit such as when a d&t teacher said ‘[d&t] gives them a bit of a flavour of what's out in industry. what jobs they're going to do in the future’ and implicit when a senior leader commented about ‘being able to do something for yourself. it's learning practical skills’. • an instrumental and intrinsic goal suggested that an individual gains satisfaction knowing they can do something or use a new piece of knowledge today. a pupil explains why he likes making food in d&t: ‘you feel like you’ve achieved something when you eat it and you like it’. • an intrinsic and terminal goal was about the satisfaction gained later in life because of their learning in d&t. for example, when a senior leader talked about the ‘passion’ some pupils will have for working in their chosen career. • segments within all three goals implied that there was satisfaction in learning something which could be used at school, and beyond. for example, when a science teacher talked about ‘the quaintness of just having something that i've made and then using that i wouldn't have necessarily appreciated then but now i think it's something quite nice to make’. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 70 the instrumental-only goal code was the largest type of goal with 216 segments (49.5% of all goals), a further 156 segments had an instrumental element; meaning 85.3% of the segments had an instrumental element (see table 4). table 4 distribution of goal elements code number of segments coded segments (%) goals instrumental only 216 49.5 terminal only 13 3.0 intrinsic only 47 10.8 instrumental and terminal 121 27.8 instrumental and intrinsic 32 7.3 instrumental, terminal and intrinsic 3 0.7 terminal and intrinsic 4 0.9 only 13 segments were coded only as a terminal goal (3% of all goals). the segments coded with the attribute terminal-only predominantly related to employment and the economy. in this type of goal participants referred to the value of d&t in the future but did not mention what pupils were learning today that would contribute to this. for example, one parent commented: 'practical skills will help them live an independent life more easily and look after themselves' but they did not mention which practical skills they would learn. with 121 segments (27.8%) coded instrumental/terminal this was the second largest goal type after instrumental-only. the predominant themes related to pupils learning about potential future d&t-related careers, how humans interact with technology and the impact of products on the environment. segments coded with the intrinsic-only element (10.8% of all goals) referred to emotions such as pride, enjoyment, fulfilment and love. one teacher educator commented: … allow that love of materials and manipulating materials to continue to be developed and not be crushed. the 32 segments (7.3%) attributed as instrumental/intrinsic were associated with pupils making and creating new products using materials (such as wood, fabric and food prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 71 ingredients), the opportunity to be creative when designing, and enjoyment. the idea that learning to make and having the opportunity to be creative was enjoyable and gave satisfaction was a recurring theme in this goal type. also, some segments had a theme of curiosity and interest, for example a d&t teacher’s comment ‘just to understand about materials and products' speaks of a curiosity, which leads to individuals learning about materials. this is echoed by a trainee d&t teacher: 'there are going to be some kids that do enjoy it and they want to learn more about it' and a comment from another trainee about 'opening the door' implies a curiosity about the motivation to learn something new. others talked about the enjoyment and satisfaction gained from learning something new. one pupil comments: with a lot of subjects, you do know stuff, but you can't really show that you know it. but with food or dt you can make something, and you feel like you've achieved something.' this was coded as both intrinsic and instrumental because the pupils are learning something (instrumental) and have the satisfaction (intrinsic) of demonstrating this by making something. the category terminal/intrinsic contained only 4 segments (0.9%). the idea of a terminal/intrinsic goal is satisfaction felt in the future from something learnt in school today because it enables the individual to do something later in life. for example, it is about individuals learning skills for future use, or for a specific job, but other skills, e.g. cooking, is because it’s 'a passion of theirs' (senior leader). for a d&t teacher it was about the potential personal satisfaction of working for a local company: a little year 7 boy told me yesterday that his granddad worked for a company which is now siemens, back in the day he worked for plessey. i said i know the company. they were huge in this city. so, if you can say i've worked for them, in some ways you've made it in life, you've got a bit of kudos. it gives a sense of pride to the area. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 72 this supports the idea that job satisfaction is achieved indirectly from studying d&t in school. additionally, for one of the teacher educators, it was a career that 'fits' the individual and therefore motivates them in school: that aspects of broad vocationalism as part of technology could actually be quite a useful motivational factor for a lot of pupils that would otherwise be disengaged from a rather over-academic curriculum. only three segments (0.7%) were attributed as instrumental, terminal and intrinsic. the idea was that talent and interest, combined with learning new skills and knowledge, could be used later in life, possibly in a career. for example, a senior leader comments: i think about a lad who we've got in our school who i taught in year 9, he was pretty good at history, but he always liked design [intrinsic]. he's in the sixth form now and he's going to be a joiner for a very successful local company [terminal]. he's talented and he's practiced, but not only has he just made things with wood all the way through, but he's actually had some proper skills taught to him [instrumental]. a pupil was able to consider how they enjoy learning something today and how it will be useful in the future: well i actually really enjoy food technology, so i think that in the future it will help me to become more persistent in cooking my own meals instead of takeaways and things like that. therefore, analysis of data coded as a goal shows that the original mapping sentence (figure 4) contained insufficient elements, and could not provide a hermeneutically consistent account and therefore needed to include four more elements: 1. instrumental/terminal 2. instrumental/ intrinsic, 3. terminal/intrinsic and 4. instrumental/terminal/intrinsic. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 73 3.2 interests in the third coding cycle (table 3) the different interests a value would or could meet were identified: • an individualistic goal was where the participant referred to the value relating to an individual only, such as when a d&t teacher said, ‘it gives them opportunities to do things like problem solving’. • a collectivist goal was when there was a benefit to society because an individual has studied d&t at school, for example when a pupil comments: ‘you wouldn't have things like tables and chairs that we're on now if you didn't have d&t. … because it takes people to do this that are in the d&t industry…’ • segments labelled with both detailed what the individual learns in d&t that benefits society, for example when a d&t teacher talks about the importance of learning about environmental issues: ‘well i think it's important to know [about] environmental issues, polluting the planet and knowing that they can grow their own foods locally rather than getting them from abroad’. unlike the goal facet, no additional elements needed to be added to the interests facet. table 5: distribution of interest elements code number of segments coded segments (%) interests individualistic only 377 86.5 collectivistic only 48 11.0 collectivistic and individualistic 11 2.5 over eighty-six per cent of all segments were categorised ‘individualistic’ (see table 5), suggesting that participants viewed individuals as the primary beneficiaries of d&t, for example, a pupil comments: ‘it gives you the skills you might need for a later career’. whilst it could have been interpreted that society benefits because the pupil gains these skills, it was interpreted as not being the pupil’s focus here – they appear to be only thinking about how they will benefit; therefore, it has individualistic interest only. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 74 generally, segments were individualistic, such as when the participants believe d&t can benefit a pupil’s career or develop skills. for example: training them for the world of work in a different way and it's giving them that opportunity (senior leader). if you didn't do d&t in schools, then eventually when it comes to what you want to do as an adult then you'll be thinking i want to take the construction path, but i have no experience whatsoever and i'll have to start again. but if you start in year 7 you've got five years just to get your head around it and see what it's all about (pupil). most segments categorised collectivist focus on the benefit d&t has for the economy, whether directly needed for the economy, such as when a pupil comments: you wouldn't have things like b&q and stuff like that, those diy shops. [because] you wouldn't know how to use even the basic things like hammers. or because certain jobs are filled because of d&t: there'd be loads of things that wouldn't be able to happen. there'd be loads of jobs that no one would do (pupil). segments coded with both interests had two connected parts. generally, the first part identified what the individual learns in d&t, the second part identified how the learning mentioned in the first part could benefit society. for example: we teach that and that makes people aware of saying right well i'm not going to put that can into that bin, i'm going to make it recycle and we recycle. so, it's having a huge impact on the environment (d&t teacher). whilst most ‘both’ segments were easily identified, some needed more interpretation. a teacher educator’s comment: ‘learn to communicate with people to get things’ appears to be self-serving, the individual learns communication skills that help them get what they want, instead, it was interpreted to mean that by learning to communicate they can explain what they want in a socially acceptable way and consequently this helps the individual take their place in society. another teacher educator’s comment that d&t is ‘necessary politically in a prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 75 democratic curriculum’ is interpreted as meaning that the individual pupil who receives the democratic curriculum is enabled to understand and engage with the country’s politics. the individualistic nature of values generally referred to the individual’s making economic gains and employment (e.g. learning skills to use in future d&t related careers) as well as those focussed on generic skills, such as learning how to manage and plan their time and work independently. there was some reference to a collectivist benefit when the participants discussed how the country’s industrial and economic competitiveness might benefit because individuals learnt skills for design and engineering careers. however, although the participants explicitly attributed values to d&t that were collectivist, there is an individualistic prerequisite because for the national economy to grow the majority of individuals need to earn an income. the results of this analysis suggest that the interest facet contained sufficient elements, unlike the goal facet, although their definition needed careful interpretation to be consistently coded and analysed. therefore, in answer to the first research question, whether the mapping sentence in figure 4 was sufficient (research question 1), the evidence presented here indicates that it was not because the goal facet did not provide a hermeneutically consistent account of the purpose of d&t. consequently, the mapping sentence needs to be modified and would benefit from being tested using data collected similar to this study but about another school subject. a modified mapping sentence is presented in figure 5. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 76 goal a person’s concept of the instrumental to goal terminal to intrinsic (7 elements in total)) interests that expresses the individualistic interests collectivist both individualistic and collectivist individual that are the positive consequences of them studying someone else subject (name of school subject) at school in england figure 5 modified mapping sentence defining the value of a school subject 4. discussion in this section the data analysis is explored to answer the second research question do the values attributed to d&t by a range of people reflect contemporary curriculum policy, economic drivers and other aims of education? a significant number of the instrumental-only goals were coded as being individualistic, which suggests that the dominant idea held by these participants is that the primary purpose of education is to benefit an individual’s life in a utilitarian and functional way. this idea appears to conflict with the 2013 national curriculum aim of pupils becoming educated citizens (department of education, 2013) but it could be interpreted that an educated citizen should be able to look after themselves, which concurs with the curriculum aim of d&t to prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 77 ‘develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world’ (department of education, 2013, p.192). therefore, the values these participants attributed to d&t more closely reflects subject-specific curriculum policy and to a lesser extent national curriculum policy. the values coded as terminal-only predominantly related to employment and the economy. whilst some pupils did not necessarily have a personal interest in the subject (indicated by their decision to not continue studying d&t post-14) they did recognise that it provides a means to an end, helping some individuals achieve a desired end-state (such as employment in a d&t related career, e.g. designer or engineer), which rokeach (1968) defined as a terminal value. there is strong evidence in the data that participants can see the terminal value of d&t because 32.4% of the goal segments have a terminal element to them. this supports the argument made by d&ta in their two campaigns (design and technology association, 2011; 2015) that d&t helps pupils in their future careers and the enduring value of d&t as a vocational subject (mcculloch, jenkins, and layton, 1985; penfold, 1988; wakefield and owen-jackson, 2013). the emphasis on work and employment is particularly significant, with values that have a greater percentage of terminal attributes focusing on work-related skills, either for d&t-related careers or those useful in any career. the notable emphasis on d&t’s individualistic benefits implies the participants believed education is about helping an individual succeed and flourish, which supports reiss and white’s (2013, p.1) first aim of education ‘(1) to lead a life that is personally flourishing’. the implication that the participants focus more on the individualistic benefits of education suggests they place less emphasis on reiss and white’s (2013) second aim of education which is to help others have a flourishing life. however, the mutualistic relationship between reiss and white’s aims when considering how d&t can help the country be competitive through design and engineering suggests the individualistic emphasis could be necessary if society is to flourish. the idea that studying d&t means individuals are better placed to help society is seen in this shift from individualistic to collectivist in segments coded instrumental/terminal. for example, in this exchange with a d&t teacher: prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 78 interviewee: well, i think i'm looking at those chairs down there, they're wood aren't they and they've got textiles on them as well. somebody's had to go through a process of learning about new materials, how they work, how they can construct it, to be able to design that. facilitator: so that's one of the things that d&t brings. interviewee: if we don't have that, then what's going to happen when we don't have any new designers, or somebody else to develop new technologies? these different goal elements represent how d&t meets different needs, thus reflecting a broader range of educational aims than those indicated in contemporary curriculum policy (e.g. department of education, 2013). by suggesting so many different goals, the participants are acknowledging between them that there are many reasons why individuals value d&t. in summary, the values espoused by the participants show a bias towards how d&t is of benefit to the individual and of instrumental and terminal value. therefore, the values attributed to d&t by these participants reflect some aspects of contemporary curriculum policy. additionally, according to these participants, d&t does respond to economic drivers, but they tended to refer to an individual’s economic needs, rather than the country’s economic requirements. finally, there was some indication that d&t met educational aims other than those stated in government policy by helping individuals develop as human beings (macallister, macleod and pirrie, 2013). 5. conclusion and future directions this study’s research aim was to construct a subject-value framework that could be used to explore the values attributed to school subjects, with two research questions: 1. can the subject-value framework constructed be used to define a school subject’s value? 2. do the values attributed to d&t by a range of people reflect contemporary curriculum policy, economic drivers and other aims of education? there were two justifications for this research; first, the perceived effect of a new school performance measure (the ebacc), which singled out some subjects and excluded others leading to the decline in popularity of some school subjects (such as d&t) and second, the prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 79 ambiguous criteria, used by policy makers, schools and others, for judging the value of different school subjects and the contribution they make to individuals or to society. drawing on value theory and prominent views about the purpose of formal education, a subject-value framework was constructed in the form of a mapping sentence (figure 4), which it was anticipated could be used to define, in a hermeneutically consistent way, the value of a school subject. to answer the first research question the framework was tested using the values different participants attributed to d&t; analysis of these values showed that the mapping sentence did provide a means for analysing the values these participants espoused. however, it also revealed some difficulties in the assumed demarcation between the elements within the goal facet. therefore, the framework was not sufficient and required modification (figure 5). this modified mapping sentence would benefit from being tested with a new study using different school subject. in response to the second research question, there was evidence that the participants thought d&t could fulfil the national curriculum aims and provide skills for future employment. but, there was less evidence that participants thought d&t enabled children to flourish or helped others to do so. further research could be conducted in three areas. this paper has presented a broadbrush view of the elements within the interest and goal facets; it would be worth exploring any themes that emerged from within the elements. secondly, this constructed subject-value framework could be used as a means of analysing curriculum policy. finally, advocates of other non-ebacc subjects (e.g. music and art and design) could use the framework to define the unique contribution their subject makes to a general education and assess if this paper’s findings are replicable or similar. references auerbach, c. f., & silverstein, l. b. 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(2014, december 24). intrinsic vs. extrinsic value. retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/valui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 39 connectivism, chaos and chaoids: how practitioners might find inspiration from chaos to find new spaces for teaching and learning copyright © 2019 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 2 (2): pp. 39-61 peter shukie university centre at blackburn college peter.shukie@blackburn.ac.uk abstract the rapid development of web 2.0 technologies has created excitement and opportunity alongside fear and confusion. it seems no part of society, culture, economy and human life generally has been untouched as a new sense of chaos emerges. across all sectors change has been experienced with a mixture of terror and exhilaration as disruption offers opportunity while often creating more oppressive structures than before. alongside technological development has been the proliferation of a neoliberal takeover of the ways we live, work and educate; a social condition that mark fisher (2010) calls capitalist realism. the impact of this growing sense of chaos on education seems significant if uncertain, generating transformative rhetoric if often ambiguous around what has been transformed. this paper looks at adult education as a space being fought over by increasingly corporate institutions and sees one thread of resistance, connectivism – a ‘new learning theory for the digital age’ introducing chaos theory as a means of resistance. the paper goes on to argue that connectivism offers practical reflections without clear purpose. we need the philosophical purpose of deleuze and guattari’s approach to chaoids and chaos to go from identifying patterns to creating new forms of creating order. the paper includes a discussion on where we are now; what the significance of these two approaches to chaos are; provides exemplars of chaoids that respond to the challenge and provide alternative models of education. 1. introduction the purpose of this paper is to develop a link between siemens (2005) and downes (2012) work on connectivism and ideas around chaoids proposed by deleuze and guattari (1994). a prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 40 common ground exists in relation to chaos, connectivism’s links to chaos theory, and the establishing of new ways of thinking about education. by better understanding how chaos theory opens up what is possible, educators find encouragement to seek alternatives to traditional institutional practice. connectivism emerged as a theoretical response to the technology-rich information age and contends that knowledge creation is intrinsically bound in a complex web of machines, people and the networks that connect them. siemens (2005) and downes (2007) propose that connectivism was a necessary response to a learning ecology fundamentally altered through the influences of networked, web-based technologies. introduced as a learning theory for the digital age (siemens, 2005), connectivism has been criticised about the extent to which it constitutes a learning theory at all (verhagen, 2006). one of the key outputs has been massive open online courses (moocs) that began as manifestations of connectivist thinking and led to 2012 being named ‘the year of the mooc’ by the new york times (pappano, 2012). connectivism was positioned as a third generation of learning theory (anderson & dron, 2011) and while challenging the extent to which it provided a feasible learning theory, bell (2011) saw for some it was, ‘an influential phenomenon that inspires teachers and learners to make changes in their practice’ (bell, 2011) while simultaneously attracting criticism for a perceive lack of theoretical rigour. what is often left undeveloped and is the primary focus here is connectivism’s interest in chaos theory. siemens described how, ‘chaos…recognizes the connection of everything to everything…the ability to recognize and adjust to pattern shifts is a key learning task.’ (siemens, 2005, p. 3). this paper argues that connectivism engenders a new approach to learning theory that can be radical and liberating by seeing in chaos theory a meaningful, powerful basis for learning design. a rethinking of who is involved in education, where it takes place and what constitutes knowledge requires a space to create alternative educational approaches. a first hurdle is overcoming prevailing concepts and authoritative voices shaping what next steps should be. connectivism occurs alongside technology-enhanced learning discourse largely rooted in tradition, convention and the maintenance of existing hierarchies and institutional models. laurillard (2007, p. xv) describes a ‘transitional phase between [an] ict free past and an ict aware future.’ many thinkers considered networks and web 2.0 technologies as heralding prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 41 significant changes in learning (prensky, 2001; laurillard, 2007, 2012; beetham & sharpe, 2007). much of this work is developed around enhancing the ways existing professional educators, and institutions of learning, might enhance what they do. technology in such models relate back to traditional learning theories and question the how of education, but not the why, what and who. in many practical instances, the ict aware future that laurillard discusses is nothing more developed than using technological approximations of ‘old’, preexisting and traditional methods of teaching that may be ‘good…but nowhere near being transformational’ (laurillard, 2007, p. xvi). siemens (2005, p. 4) suggests chaos holds a ‘cryptic form of order’ that lies in wait of discovery. it is a view of chaos based on discovery that is contrasted here with deleuze and guattari’s consideration that chaos is a site for creation. in their work around chaoids (1994, p. 208). deleuze & guattari, propose chaos as a space of creation that makes possible the thinking of new concepts. deleuzo-guattarian thinking help provide a reflective depth that supports the practical aspects of connectivism. this depth allows consideration of not only the networked potential of humans and machines at an operational level, but to also respond to the complex issues raised by a technology infrastructure immersed in political, ideological and cultural inequalities. this helps locate technology enhanced learning in a vast matrix of capacities…almost beyond human imagining’ (crawford & joli, 2018, p. ii)built on interconnectedness involving “a vast planetary network’ (crawford & joli, 2018, p. ii) of labour, and the mining of resources and data. chaos, and our responses to it, ask for more than competence and professional standards and instead necessitate creativity and a consciousness based on the impact our choices generate. educators must balance the ways they might use technology for positive revisions and social equality while also being conscious of the impact our efforts have on these wider planetary networks. connectivism and deleuze and guattari have proven influential concepts in recent years and through exploring the links with chaos it is possible to find the ways educators might unsettle and invert conventional wisdom. such conventions include unmasking the hidden structures of technology networks and creating educational opportunity that is both valuable in its immediate context, and reflective of its wider global effects. by insisting we think differently, finding potential to transgress dominant hierarchical and elitist educational models, the aim is to engage with theoretical spaces that are not necessarily fully formed. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 42 the consideration is whether the incompleteness of connectivism generates a space of creative possibility that might continue to inspire educators who are open to fluid, imperfect and nebulous stages of development. the paper is an exploration of chaos, its applications and the way we might use some of these ideas to support new thinking and alternative places to learn and teach. 2. enhancing the familiar this section provides examples of the wider technology enhanced learning discourse and the emphasis on enhancing existing institutions, rather than disrupting them. it is important to recognise that siemens and the connectivists are not alone in highlighting alternative concepts around where learning occurs. a growing body of work recognises the potential for redrawing the borders of where education emerges (edwards, gallacher & whittaker, 2007; facer, 2011; holland, 2011; hall & smyth, 2016). despite this, a residual institutional epistemology (schön, 1995) resists challenges to centripetal ownership and dominance. webb (2018, pp. 96-97) characterises a ‘corporate-imperial university’ firmly entrenched in a ‘network of state apparatuses of control, discipline, surveillance, carcerality and violence.’ the concern of the university from this perspective is not one of neutral exploration of networked spaces but a more sinister seeking of continued control over learning alongside ownership of knowledge creation (webb, 2018). the significance is that while transformation might appear in both connectivist thinking and the language of the institution, the underlying ideals are radically different. laurillard (2012) illustrates the view that technology provides new tools, often unruly and unsettling, and that professional educators must take control if these are to offer meaningful benefit. laurillard (2012, p. 226) echoes siemens (2005) earlier contention that the challenges of the information age mean learning ‘cannot be met by our current educational systems.’ what is required, laurillard (2012, p. 226) argues, is to establish teaching as a design science rather than an art to reinforce the links between education and government agendas. through teaching as design-science, laurillard presents a platform for professionalization in teaching and a renewal of the three roles (teacher, student, knowledge) that accommodate technology along institutional lines but that resist any shift to new spaces. rather than as passive adaptors, laurillard (2012, p. 2) argues that educators must, ‘now begin to drive its prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 43 use of technology.’ it is a call for greater technology, increased use of technology, but with power, hierarchy and control remaining in the same hands as before. laurillard dismisses ‘opportunists’ that find in networked technologies the opportunity to alter where learning might occur. instead of welcoming new participants, fresh perspectives and transformative approaches to learning for contemporary society, laurillard (2012, p. 4) proposes a defensive academy premised on a response in which, ‘the educationalist has to attack this kind of nonsense.’ other emergent, contemporary learning theories, such as engestrom’s (2001, p. 58) expansive learning theory that recognises the rapidity of change means often knowledge is ‘learned as it is being created. there is no competent teacher.’ the development of social constructivist principles recognises a fluidity in who teachers might be, yet remains clear that the educational institutions will be the place in which this change takes place. springer (2016, p. 5) considers anarchic pedagogies as ones that might foster, ‘the possibility of building a new world in the shell of the old’ that reflect beliefs in pedagogy as the route away from oppressive social control. parchoma (2011) and kanuka (2008) suggests that educators need to revisit their philosophies in practice to develop renewed awareness of a learning ecology transformed by technology networks. the focus of such philosophies focus on an institutional professionalism rather than spaces beyond the institution. both siemens (2005) and downes (2007) consider connectivism provides alternate ways of viewing how we learn even if these alternatives are not explicitly anti-institutional. there is a commonality here with both connectivism and advocates of teaching-as-profession viewing technology as the basis of a radical rethinking of education. much of the discourse from institutions appears rooted in defence of existing power and authority. it is a position reflective of what braidotti (2006, p. 2) describes as a “magician’s trick” as new technologies help promote globalisation that results in: …a totally schizophrenic double pull…the potentially innovative, deterritorialising impact of new technologies…hampered and tuned down by the reassertion of the gravitational pull of old and established values. prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 44 understanding that this double-pull exists is a necessary step in recognising that, while the language of transformation is commonplace and widespread, it is a term that reflects widely different realities. connectivism is a significant part of the discourse, but from a perspective not already committed to the continuation of existing institutional models. the importance of the network also insists on greater recognition of the planetary matrix (crawford & joli, 2018) itself being shaped by residual power structures that shape future spaces in the unequal image of the past or the present. 2.1 connectivism the foundations of connectivism begin with siemens’ 2005 paper, connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age. connectivism responds to altered states of learning ‘impacted… by technology’ (siemens, 2005, p. 1) and proposes that traditional theories of learning are incapable of responding to learning in a digital age. siemens (2005, p. 3) argues that ‘the underlying conditions have altered so significantly, an entirely new approach is needed’. it is a position familiar to those ideas around networks emerging within institutional practice, but siemens (cited in feldstein, 2014, p. 7) proposed that connectivist moocs: …were not designed to serve the missions of the elite colleges and universities. they were designed to undermine them and make those missions obsolete. in such explicit claims, connectivism presents a process for disruption but one dislocated from any clear ideological purpose for disruption. for siemens, the failures of the institutions are based in a failure to recognise the impact of networks that bypass the familiar roles and practices of the institutions. at the core of this argument is that widespread technology use has dramatically increased the ‘half-life of knowledge’ (siemens, 2005, p. 1), that is, the time span from when ‘knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete.’ siemens questions the dominance of traditional models of learning, of objectivism, pragmatism and interpretivism as the theoretical basis for how learning is designed. in the learning models of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism, the foci of learning remain embodied in the individual. as the half-life of knowledge diminishes, as organisations expand and leaning occurs through machines and networks, this focus on embodying learning within individual learners becomes diminished. rather than memorising facts and specific data, siemens (2005, p. 3) argues that learning must respond to pattern recognition around where learning occurs. a deluge of information means it is impossible for any individual to hold the information they need prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 45 meaning new learning skills must recognise the value of connections and the immediacy of technologically mediated knowledge. connectivism shifts from models of learning that prioritise the individual as the ultimate receptacle of learning. instead, the contention is that connections and networks are most significant and that, ‘our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today’ (siemens, 2005, p. 6). siemens (2005, p. 5) presents eight principles of connectivism: i. learning & knowledge rests in diversity of opinions ii. learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources iii. learning may reside in non-human appliances iv. capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known v. nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning vi. ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill vii. currency (accurate, up to date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities viii. decision making itself is a learning process. the epistemological basis of connectivism across these principles contradicts knowledge prioritised in in the institutional-as-centre theories. siemens (2005) and downes (2007) argue for ‘distributed learning’ as a form of knowledge and learning. connectivist knowledge includes clear distinctions between public knowledge, ‘embodied as a canon and passed on to successive generations’ (downes, 2007, p. 14), social knowledge, knowledge not held in any single individual, or node, ‘…rather a property of the society working as a whole’ (downes, 2007, p. 8) and private/personal knowledge that resides within the individual and unknowable outside that individual, until it becomes shared knowledge, or in other cases, public knowledge. what characterises connectivist knowledge is that it ‘…requires an interaction. more to the point connective knowledge is knowledge of the interaction’ (downes, 2007, p. 1). the interaction between individuals, societies, organisations and the technology that links them, become the focus for distributed learning. what creates knowledge, or what creates the prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 46 existence of concepts that can be ‘known’, relies on the multiple places across connections and not in any single place (downes, 2007, p. 7). where connectivism has been most visible is in massive open online courses (moocs) that initially challenged the location of learning. moocs began with the creation of connectivist moocs (cmoocs) that introduced the concept of online, large cohort networks, without identifiable teachers, subject focus nor institutional affiliation. connectivist moocs were themselves marginalised as the xmooc, those moocs owned and operated by universities as branding exercises, began to dominate. daniel (2012, p.2) argues that beyond a shared acronym, xmoocs and cmoocs are, ’…so distinct in pedagogy that it is confusing to designate them by the same term.’ fidalgo-blanco (2016, p. 2) defines the separation as xmoocs being ‘instructivist and individualist’ while cmoocs require ‘social learning, cooperation and the use of web 2.0’. table 1 defines some of the key differences between the two moocs that also serve to distinguish the ways that connectivism offers a direct challenge to institutional thinking. cmooc (or connectivist mooc) xmooc • ‘connectivist, social learning approach that focuses on communication amongst participants online’ (bayne & ross, 2014. p.4) • ‘driven by principles of pedagogic innovation within a richly networked, disaggregated mode of social learning’ (bayne & ross, 2014, p.21) • ‘based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking’ (daniel, 2012. p.2) • ‘cmoocs…originally • designed to challenge traditional approaches to teaching and learning by experimenting with • ‘focus more on content transmission and knowledge acquisition through repetition and testing’ (bayne & ross, 2014. p.4) • ‘institutionally-focused ‘xmooc’, characterised by pedagogy short on social contact …overly reliant on videolecture content and automated assessment’ (bayne & ross, 2014. p.21) • ‘developed by elite us institutions …follow a more behaviourist approach’ (daniel, 2012. p.2) • ‘xmoocs …have taken a traditional pedagogical approach to teaching prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 47 table 1: distinction between cmoocs and xmoocs (shukie, 2018, p. 84) rather than distributed knowledge, the xmooc centralised expertise through star lecturers and prioritised student numbers as a key measure. distribution of this kind was more that of a mass market, based on consumption of institutional products and dissemination of public knowledge, than spaces for exchange and knowledge creation. selwyn (2015, p. 191) described moocs as ‘a conduit for long running struggles over the nature and form of higher education’ with the potential for distributed knowledge at the heart of this struggle. anderson & dron (2011, p. 80) present connectivism as the third generation of distance learning, following cognitive-behaviourism and social-constructivism with each theory representing the ‘worldview of the era in which they developed.’ while approximating a form of transformation, anderson & dron (2011, p. 92) argue that “new” learning theories remain largely underpinned by older, traditional and conventional models. while chaos theory might describe the potential of the networks the forms of knowledge being connected remain dominated by conventional means of construction. distributed knowledge opens possibilities for multiple spaces to create what is learned and where this comes from, yet in connectivism appears as a form of de-politicised popular education. the underpinning rationale for connectivism that siemens (2005) provides is not explicit in establishing a shift in power even while this appears fundamental. there is no corresponding critique of neoliberal education, privatisation or financialisation found elsewhere (berardi, 2015; springer, 2016; webb, 2018). the argument here is that where the potential for such recognition comes, and where new models of education might emerge, is through recognising the importance of connectivism’s relationship with chaos theory. 2.2 chaos theory the significance of chaos theory is presented in siemens’ (2005) first description of connectivism and in downe’s (2007; 2012) later work on connectivist knowledge. they argue that chaos theory provides opportunities to shift away from traditional approaches to • new pedagogical approach’ (mackness & bell, 2015. p.25) • and learning’ (mackness & bell, 2015. p.25) prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 48 education and while siemens (2005) also considers complexity theory and self-organisation theory, it is the stronger influence of chaos theory that is of most interest here. chaos theory initially developed in relation to meteorology in the early 1960s (lorenz, 1995) and highlighted the significance that tiny changes had on long term weather patterns. the consequences of events are to a large extent unpredictable, leading to the proliferation of the concept of ‘butterfly effect’ that stems from lorenz’s work. according to this, a butterfly flapping its wings in one continent can create tumultuous weather conditions in another, the impact of the initial conditions having far-reaching and largely unpredictable consequences. primarily rooted in natural sciences and mathematics, chaos theory is founded on three key principles: i. there must be a dependence on the sensitivity to initial conditions ii. the system must be iterative iii. the system must be linear (bird, 1997, p. 144) the significance of sensitivity to initial conditions resonates with research, practice and theory beyond the natural sciences and into sociology and education (eve, horsfall and lee, 1997). the possibilities of chaos theory opened-up new ways of thinking and renewed support for ideas and theoretical models that challenge established order. turner highlights approaches to chaos theory that offer: …to place within our grasp a set of very powerful intellectual tools – concepts to think with…free of many of the limitations of our traditional armory…we can dissolve oppositions between the ordered and the random – and in the process reinstate useful old ideas such as freedom. new concepts become thinkable. (cited in eve, horsfall & lee, 1997, p. xii) gleick (1997) contends that it will, along with relativity and quantum mechanics, be the most significant legacy of the twentieth century. the focus of this claim lies in the contention that chaos theory impacts on all other theories, in all disciplines. gleick (1997, p. 7) ascertains that, ‘the simplest systems are now seen to create extraordinarily difficult problems of prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 49 predictability’ and from this unpredictability, ’order arises spontaneously …chaos and order together. chaos theory is open to varying interpretations, primarily that it creates a theoretical basis for believing that nothing can be predicted, and consequently nothing is certain except uncertainty. chaos theory is then deterministic even if determined responses are not easily predicted (bird, 1997, p. 144; gleick, 1997, pp. 150-151). it is significant because while traditional science bases ‘canons of proof on successful prediction of the results of controlled experimentation’ (turner, 1997, p. xii), the lack of knowledge of where such proof lies evades conventional truth claims. concepts of teaching as a design science (laurillard, 2012) are then constrained by such conventional approaches to evidence and unable to respond to the sensitivity to initial conditions and the ripple effect of global networks. additional concepts from chaos theory, such as mandelbrot sets (gleick, 1997, p. 236) strange attractors (lorenz, 1995 p. 139) and the butterfly effect (gleick, 1997, p. 9) identify that although random, there are still clear patterns of order; although ones difficult to predict. eve, horsfall and lee, (1997, pp. 270-271) describe chaotic and random characteristics of chaos as a myth based on a desire for clarity and linear order. 2.3 chaos theory and connectivism connectivism recognises unpredictability as a fundamental feature of all networks and scientific (social and natural) exploration. for siemens (2005, p. 4) the learning impact comes as: computer networks, power grids, and social networks all function on the simple principle that people, groups, systems, nodes, entities can be connected to create an integrated whole. alterations within the network have ripple effects on the whole. siemens suggests that, ‘chaos is a new reality for knowledge workers’ (ibid.) and links the shrinking half-life of knowledge to a necessary shift in how learning responds. it is important that chaos does not mean random, that for connectivist thinkers ‘chaos states that meaning exists” and the task for learners and educators is to “recognise the patterns that appear to be hidden’ (siemens, 2005, p.4). caught within an ecology of “extraordinarily difficult problems of predictability” (gleick, 1997, p.360) the shift of education is away from neat concepts of prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 50 knowing as a fixed concept to one in which, ‘the pipe is more important than the content in the pipe’ (siemens, 2005. p.6). networks and connections become the essential routes to discover knowledge and it is the ability to discover, through networks, that is more important than acquiring any fixed concepts or established knowledge. downes (2012, p. 94) argues that educational chaos is an inevitability and the fact that this does not apply well in traditional learning and existing academic institutions is ‘so much the worse’ for them. an inability to respond to chaotic spaces, he argues, restricts potential responsiveness from education structures that are able only to reproduce an expected, predictable concept of knowledge. what downes describes is connectivism developing not a fear of chaos but an acceptance of it. it is an acceptance that paces it at odds with institutional conventions that cannot align with connectivist thinking because the response must always be to appropriate it. downes (2012, p. 92) suggests such arguments are ‘circular’ because critics of connectivism that base their measures on existing practices merely “defend the current practice by the current practice.” anderson & drons (2011, p.89) criticise that in connectivist spaces ‘structure is unevenly distributed and often emergent’ with a result that is seldom ‘optimally efficient for achieving learning goals’ highlights downes point. once new models are assessed purely on the ways they replicate existing measures they lose any impact. new models require a radical rethinking of what we mean by education, who it involves and how it is measured. responding to criticism that educators need to be aware of connectivism as potentially leading to what kashan described as ‘educational chaos’ (downes, 2012, p. 93). downes says that: …the connectivist approach can pretty reliably lead to chaos. but this is because we believe that learning is not structured, controlled or processed perhaps similar to the unpredictable order of strange attractors, this vision of chaos contends that patterns exist, and learning is about discovering them. downes (2012, p. 93) suggests that: …we expect students to be able to manage complex and rapidly changing environments...to manage through just the sort of chaos we are creating prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 51 downes (2012, p. 453) argues that rather than saying ‘knowledge is power’ we should see that ‘power is knowledge.’ the significance downes (2012, p. 454) gives to this is that knowledge exists only in terms of the connections that provide it; that power is shifting from centralised states such as monarchy and corporatism and toward ‘the chaos of individualism’ in which ‘knowledge is nothing more than pattern recognition.’ a further concern might be the ways that connectivist thinking responds to the darker aspects of the web (crawford & joli, 2018) and those ripple effects that perpetuate global inequalities while seemingly supporting educational change. the significance of connectivism and chaos theory is the opening of the door to new theoretical foundations, beyond those of pragmatism, objectivism or interpretivism and recognising power as a feature of all learning. recognising the significance of chaos insists on looking outward to the ‘anatomy’ (crawford & joli, 2018) of networks and seeing what impact increased technology has on the planet in terms of labour, social equality and diminishing resources. as an escape from narrow furrows of professional educators and institutional control, chaos theory provides a strong if unwieldy theoretical basis to think new thoughts. 2.4 chaoids and planes of immanence: a deleuzo-guattarian response to chaos at this point the paper recognises a fork in the road and takes an alternative path than connectivism as enough in itself to foster change. while connectivism proposes order in chaos and recognition of this order as the goal, another approach exists that posits creation rather than discovery . deleuze and guattari’s (1994) chaoids engage with chaos as more than a space of unpredictability, and instead introduces chaos as a space able to host alternate concepts of reality. rather than placing us outside, watching what forms in a chaos beyond us, deleuze and guattari describe a chaos in which we might create new concepts. the purpose of the inclusion here is to promote knowledge as something we generate rather than recognise. a crucial feature of this approach is planes of immanence (deleuze and guattari, 1994; holland, 2011) that represent the way philosophy might cut through chaos (figure 1). prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 52 figure 1: image showing the plane of immanence cutting one of infinite possible pathways through chaos. planes of immanence are spaces along which new ways of thinking develop. along these planes, chaoids are more particular instances of how concepts are generated and represent alternate ways of speaking, seeing, writing and creating new realities. deleuze and guattari (1994, p. 208) propose that, ‘chaos has three daughters, depending on the plane that cuts through it: these are the chaoids art, science, and philosophy as forms of thought or creation.’ the three ‘daughters’ offer divergent approaches unified by a shared concern with recognising chaos and responding to it; the chaoids become ‘the realities produced on the planes that cut through the chaos in different ways’ (deleuze and guattari, 1994, p. 208). planes are infinite and can reflect multiple viewpoints, realities and spaces for philosophies to emerge (holland, 2011). parr (2010, p. 48) defines philosophy itself as ‘an ethics of chaos, a particular way of living with chaos – and against the sterile clichés of opinion (doxa).’ a deleuzo-guattarian chaos is defined, ‘not by disorder but by its fugacity’ (parr, 2010, p. 48). the speed of thoughts and actions that emerge and disappear almost immediately have some resonance with siemens (2005) diminishing half-life of knowledge, recognising chaos in continual flux. as a result, parr (2010, p. 48) defines ‘the task of philosophy, through the drawing of planes of immanence [is] to give consistency to chaos while retaining its speed and productivity.’ in what is philosophy? (1994), delueze and guattari argue that emerging philosophies must respond to the world as it is lived now, avoiding merely reactive critique and instead proposing affirmative philosophies that provide alternatives (holland, 2011). berardi (2014) reflects on guattari’s work on chaosmos, which is, ‘a composed chaos neither foreseen or pre-conceived’ (p.204) as a stage reached when it becomes necessary to prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 53 move from one way of thinking to another. this shift from ‘one rhythm to another’ (p.188) requires chaoids to represent the actuality, the means of capturing and responding to a new way of seeing. berardi (2014, p. 188) describes chaoids as: …a linguistic agent whose purpose and function is to translate the spasmodic rhythm of chaos so that it can become harmonic and understandable. chaoid is the form (artistic, poetic, political, scientific) that is able to transfer language into another dimension of speed existing outside of the spasmogenic rhythm being dominated by the language of finance. chaoids are the beginning of concepts, spaces for imagining that first dispel the emptiness of opinion (deleuze & guattari, 1994, p.206) and then help create concepts through thought and action. the importance for contemporary educators is in the generation of, and responsiveness to, chaoids that reflect chaos and offer affirmative solutions and do not become enamoured with only existing structures of power. guattari argues that the creation of chaoids becomes necessary in the face of ‘barbarism, mental implosion, chaosmic spasm’ (cited in berardi, 2014, p.183) and berardi proposes that such dangers are evident now in the shape of climate change and pervasive neoliberal capitalism. we might find in connectivism a chaoid in educational philosophy that escapes the economic and canonical drivers of what education is, and what it is for. from this chaoid, concepts of new educational engagement might be imagined and enacted. connectivism offers no ready-made, complete theory but a space that opens thought, allowing challenge, change, diversion and reflection as it continues to respond to chaosmos. these new spaces are not necessarily emancipatory and miller (2018, p. 335) considers that technology networks produce ‘new powers’ that are, ‘not only new; they are also wild’. this wildness means new power is as likely to dismantle the positive aspects of law, social and cultural systems on which we rely as they are to remove barriers of elitism and social inequality. the development of new educational philosophies is, then, one of balance, between recognising alternative power and evading replication of existing inequalities. holland (2011, p. 5) says for deleuze and guattari, ‘active forces should always take priority over reactive ones’ and linking the work of the connectivists with chaoids recognises that future endeavours require more than pedagogical practice and must be supported by affirmative philosophies. such a praxis of action and affirmative theory is necessary to prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 54 establish meaningful challenges to educational structures built on unsustainable models of capitalist growth and exploitation. webb (2018, p. 97-99) criticises the university as, ‘an oligarchy working with government and business to preserve its own privileges’ and, while ‘utopian classrooms’ based around dialogic education might exist, these are ‘heavy on bombast’ and do not fulfil their promises. while recognising that critical views of the university are a valuable stating point, we also need alternate planes of immanence where educators, of many backgrounds, can develop chaoids and concepts that widen what education looks like. deleuze and guattari (1994, p. 108) remind that new practices rely on contexts not yet developed and as such are creations today for a ‘people yet to come.’ new planes of immanence, and chaoids such as connectivism, offer affirmative responses that may help prepare the ground for this eventuality. 3. out of chaos in this section, the focus is on highlighting some examples that exist now and lay some foundations for the people yet to come. the importance of these spaces is realised by exploring the ways in which alternative educational possibilities are created and shaped by affirmative philosophical positions. the examples here highlight the crucial importance of philosophy and a transformative ethos in generating real alternatives. each is used to indicate various approaches to educational change, including non-institutional approaches, institutional academics creating new networks, the development of new bodies and projects that work alongside institutions. webb (2018, p. 102) identifies an ‘undercommons’ within institutions that resist corporate missions and offer hidden, radical fringes of educators doing things differently. the examples here differ from that in that they begin with an ethos open in its distinctiveness, opposed to the forces that are shaping education based on neoliberalism. these are not hidden, even if unseen, and each proposes a new form of education that challenges institutional dominance. returning to the connectivist mooc highlights this distinction, which operate not as ‘utopian classrooms’ (webb, 2018, p.100) in which institutionally-bound ‘bolt-holes’ offer only minor spaces of transgression. cmoocs create new spaces to connect that exist beyond the institutional even while populated by many institutionally based creators. berardi (2014, p. 192) responded to the bologna declaration of june 1999, a crucial point in the beginning of a neoliberal takeover of education in europe, with the creation of the european school for prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 55 the social imagination (scepsi) in 2011. the purposes of scepsi relate to creating autonomous knowledge in neutral spaces not automatically defined by economic considerations. scepsi defines itself as an, ‘experiment in the self-organization of the general intellect…aiming to create a social space for the autonomous production of knowledge and the recuperation of the social common’. (from scepsi website1). scepsi promotes a developing network, involving academics, but seeking spaces beyond the institutions that no longer permit such work. similar ventures such as the recently closed social science centre in lincoln offered education courses for free, based on voluntary expertise and tuition. developing alternative organisations reveals the willingness of academics within institutions to look outside to continue socially ethical work. the closure of such places highlights the difficulty of survival in such economic environments. critical observations such as mark fisher’s (2009) capitalist realism offer both a strong philosophical critique of contemporary culture with a recognition of the value of networks in creating participants through blogs and online communities. fisher (2009, p. 2) argues that capitalist realism conditions, ‘not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action.’ beyond the powerful philosophical critique, it was the development of fisher’s thinking through k-punk, a blog, that shifted beyond the restrictions of a dominating and restrictive institutional and cultural landscape. multiple blogs and online zines (grace-ford, 2019) offer a diy approach that allows diverse, meanderings beyond the institutions. participation through art, film, psycho-geographic wanderings, writing and activism that embrace unpredictability and produce cultural responses to the flux across ripples of time, space and context. projects such as community open online courses (coocs) (shukie, 2018) and ragged university (dunedin, 2018) provide non-institutional spaces that prioritise the community as the site of knowledge exchange. they present realities of educational space that is distinct from the institutions, involve different voices and subjects of study and avoid measures common to institutional education. the organisation and operation of these organisations is participatory and voluntary and evades centralised leadership. as each course/ event/ online 1 https://scepsi.weebly.com/ prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 56 posting is developed independently the opportunity to respond to unpredictability and fugacity is increased. they represent separate and community-led initiatives that are explicitly non-institutional and seek knowledge from communities and individuals regardless of academic criteria. utilising technology networks underpins both and reflect the diversity of connectivism as a chaoid while adding additional philosophical basis in social justice, popular education and critical theory. mycroft & sidebottom (2018) have developed constellations of practice based on rhizomatic concepts of knowledge that shape chaos to create multiple and diverse approaches to learning. employing posthuman-inspired affirmative ethics (braidotti, 2013, p. 2) these constellations challenge dominant enlightenment ideals of ‘vitruvian man’ as well as neoliberal constrictions on what is considered educationally valuable. responding to traditional systems of education that, ‘compound inequality…removing its social purpose in favour of the economic imperative’ (braidotti, 2013, p. 8) the constellations of people/concepts show real and virtual communities scattered across multiple projects. the common characteristic was that the participants were involved in educational organisations, but required an alternative space/ network to explore, create and communicate that generally did not exist in traditional education. in the example of free spirit media, a chicago-based organisation, the emphasis is on developing programmes of study for youth and young people in broadcast media. the initiative involves a neighbourhood context that allows young people the opportunity to view their own communities’ issues and concerns and gives them the tools to articulate and share their stories. the ethos of the project is that ‘social transformation is only viable when individuals promote and practice equality, inclusion, and solidarity’ (free spirit media, 2018, p.1). the multiple community broadcasts highlight a vibrant landscape in which core values of participation and social purpose replace institutional measures of accreditation. the value of technology is both at a technical skill level but includes networking and collaboration beyond single neighbourhoods. across these few examples what emerges is an understanding of the value of chaoids, of people, communities and academics seeking alternatives in how we educate, create knowledge and construct learning networks. responding to henry giroux’s utopian imaginary, webb (2018, p.14) identifies how the institutions offer an almost impossible prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 57 terrain for new thinking and activism. the exemplars here challenge this impossibility and highlight how new thinking finds a way. turner’s contention that chaos theory allows ‘new concepts to become thinkable’ resonates here. these thinkers and creators have generated chaoids almost certainly not defined in relation to chaos theory, chaoids or connectivism. yet, these disparate approaches to change and rethinking education can be considered examples of the ways that educators might use networked possibilities of technology alongside defined philosophical purpose, to create meaningful, empowered alternatives for education. 4. conclusion two approaches to chaos have been presented here. connectivism offers a contemporary response to how we might rethink education to recognise patterns within chaos and focus on learning as a networked process. deleuze and guattari propose chaoids that allow for new philosophies of education and the necessity of affirmative, active responses that order chaos and create patterns. these are not mutually exclusive, and we combine the ways we think about the development of new approaches to learning. rooted in the actual practices of networked learning, connectivist ideas provide a link to chaoids and the regeneration of the educational mission. chaoids insist on a response to chaos that is live and vital, seeing in flux and uncertainty the need for newness in how we educate and create knowledge. it begins with educators of all kinds, reflective and inventive creators of our present, who accept making changes must begin with us. the exemplars discussed here recognise interconnectedness and diversity from community-led initiatives also have wider impact and it is through closer networks that we can by-pass the brutality of market-forces and standardising compliance-based models of thinking and learning. rethinking models of education beyond the institutions can influence change within them. we can reject destructive and marginalising competition for the sake of market ideology, league tables and standardizing measures that create a language of failing institutions and disadvantaged communities based on fiscal concerns, not on concerns of purpose and value. instead, as coocs, ragged univerity, constellations of practice and free spirit media show, we can rethink communities as powerful spaces of knowledge that can respond to unpredictability and continually changing conditions. encountering chaos as a tangible space, and one that might be shaped through our own contexts and actions, insists prism 2(2) prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 58 on plurality rather than standardisation. it is only in a denial of chaos that we become fearful of a lack of order and search instead for stronger, more defined standardising approaches and prescriptive professionalization. berardi (2014, p. 193) argues that generating chaoids is about, ‘the creation of the institutions for self-organisation of the general intellect’ rather than restoring former state institutions. approaches based on autonomy, localised responses to sustainability, challenges to economic or social marginalisation are all possible new formations that developing as planes of immanence, cutting through the chaosmos. as practitioners, our role is not to seek reductive skill-based guidance notes from a diluted version of connectivism, a how-to guide of technology enhanced learning. instead, we can approach connectivism as a gateway into the possibilities of education that reflects wide and disparate influences. through chaos we encounter the infinite possibilities from which we might create solutions to global, national and regional challenges. through chaoids such as connectivism, we can build new approaches that combine to establish new planes, alternate ways of thinking that can energise and renew our purpose as educators and as people. as mark fisher (2009, pp. 80-81 concludes: the long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity. the very oppressive pervasiveness of capitalist realism means that even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have 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(2018). bolt holes and breathing spaces in the system: on forms of academic resistance (or, can the university be a site of utopian possibility). the review of education, pedagogy, and cultural studies. vol. 40, no.2, pp.96 118. http://elearning.surf.nl/e-learning/english/3793 http://elearning.surf.nl/e-learning/english/3793 prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 25 defining design and technology in an age of uncertainty: the view of the expert practitioner copyright © 2017-2018 prism: casting new light on learning, theory and practice http://prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk/ issn 2514-5347 vol. 1 (2): pp. 25-54 david wooff edge hill university david.wooff@edgehill.ac.uk abstract long standing debate surrounds the position that design and technology holds in the english and welsh national curriculum. some commentators espouse alignment with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) as its natural home, whilst others argue that this stifles creativity and takes no account of the ‘designerly’ nature they consider to be a central tenet of the subject. against this backdrop, the subject has undergone changes in both prescribed subject knowledge content and examination and assessment arrangements by which pupil progress and attainment are measured. set against this background, the work presented here summarises a delphi study which sought to canvass established and experienced design and technology teachers about how they perceive the attributes, values and unique features of the subject. the results are analysed to give a view of the subject from within the classroom. analysis reveals that participants in the study consider the ‘uniqueness’ of the subject to prevail over the values and attributes they collectively define it by. the study moves on to discuss the findings in relation to the values and direction which underpin the policy documentation that drives and shapes the subject from a national perspective. finally, the work concludes by highlighting several important areas worthy of further research which have emerged and could be seen as contributory to understanding the nature and essence of design and technology. 1. introduction and rationale 1.1 introduction design and technology is a relatively new academic discipline, its emergence stemming back to the first iteration of the national curriculum (department for children schools and families (dcsf), 1989). not only did this review change the subject content studied in schools, prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 26 it also saw the introduction of the general certificate of secondary education series of examinations as the final school leaving qualification in place of ordinary level (o-level) and certificate of secondary education (cse) qualifications. as a curriculum subject, design and technology is unique in that it is an education construct which does not exist outside of formal education (bell, wooff, mclain, & morrison-love, 2017), nor did it exist prior to this curriculum revision. the separate strands brought together to form design and technology have their foundations in well-established subjects stretching back to the turn of the 20th century and it is acknowledged that they emerged from the recognised subject of “handicraft” (atkinson, 1990). however, these strands have themselves undergone identity drift over the decades since they were initially established, with woodwork and metalwork recently combining to form ‘resistant materials’, engineering design and technical drawing coming together to form ‘graphic products’ and even cookery (or cooking) metamorphosing via home economics into ‘food technology’ and arguably into the vocational offshoot of ‘catering and hospitality’. these subjects were initially combined, along with a subject typically aligned with art and design, sewing, or needlework, which itself became ‘textiles technology’. every one of these falls under the umbrella of ‘design and technology’ due to exhibiting an element of design, or ‘designerly’ thinking. originally designated as a compulsory subject at the point of its inception design and technology lost this protected status in a later curriculum revision which saw it become noncompulsory beyond the end of key stage 3 (ks3) for all 11-14 year olds (miller & mcgimpsey, 2011). subsequently it has seen a continual decline in student numbers (turner, 2017). more recently it has been omitted from the main school performance measure, the english baccalaureate although it can be used in another measure designed to analyse individual pupil progress over the course of their secondary education (department for education, 2017). the impacts of policy changes on the identity and status of design and technology cannot be underestimated. initially it appeared to be a heavily over-assessed subject with multiple combinations of attainment targets and programmes of study (dcsf, 1989). these have changed, as has the prescriptive pedagogy found in earlier curriculum revisions, to leave a prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 27 single attainment target for ks3 design and technology (dfe, 2013). yet despite these changes in assessment, the actual content of the design and technology curriculum has evolved without fully considering the wider views across industry and commerce of what the subject should be (design and technology association (data), 2011). debate from within the subject itself often focuses on elements of core identity including its place within stem (bell, 2012, 2016; williams, 2011), its vocational nature (miller & mcgimpsey, 2011), its academic worth (morrison, 2013), its role in creativity (barlex, 2002; mclellan & nicholl, 2013) and its contribution to problem solving (hennessy & murphy, 1999). irrespective of the lens adopted, this lack of cohesion gives rise to ongoing battle with subject professionals to justify its curricular existence (barlex, 2007; owen-jackson, 2013). this in turn gives rise to the subject’s current instability. a desire to investigate this instability and the variance of opinion which underpins it provides the rationale for this study. through engagement with stakeholders it seeks to ask: “what actually is design and technology?” in the course of engaging in this study, it is anticipated that participants will further develop their own personal epistemology (hofer, 2000) in relation to design and technology, even if they are not cognisant of doing so. in drawing on the earlier work of king and kitchener (1994), hofer suggests that the way an individual views knowledge changes with time and experience ‘moving from a fixed to a more fluid view’ (2000, p. 380). it is this fluidity which offers the mechanism by which participants can challenge and develop their personal epistemology. this presupposes that their existing epistemological beliefs are continually evolving rather than subscribing to a dualistic belief surrounding the creation of knowledge about a subject. as this is individual to each person it is logical to anticipate that each participant in the study will be at a different point on the continuum between a fixed and a fluid view about the nature of design and technology. in the investigation of this difference of opinion it is anticipated that some commonality will prevail, leading to a consensus relating to the attributes and values of the subject to those wishing to study it. in accepting this variance in epistemological belief, it is necessary to also consider the impact of each individual’s personal ontology. the ongoing debate into the identity of the prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 28 subject will have an impact on participants in this study. this, along with the value their own training and background has placed on the subject, will lead them to consider what design and technology is to each of them. although the purpose of this study is not to challenge the beliefs of individual participants, it is likely that the reflective nature of their engagement will lead participants to question what they know about the subject itself. design and technology struggles to maintain its existence (data, 2011). the closure and diversification of routes into teaching design and technology do little to reinforce its standing as an ‘academic subject’ (miller & mcgimpsey, 2011). this uncertainty is further compounded by an ongoing internal struggle within the subject itself as many stakeholders debate, disagree and theorise about what the subject actually is from their own perspective (gilbert, boulter, & elmer, 2000; hardy, 2015, 2016a; middleton, 2005; miller & mcgimpsey, 2011). in turn, this leads to differences in belief over the direction the subject should take to sustain its future. it is clear that there are different identifiable stakeholders who, from their own unique perspective, offer a valid opinion about the value and worth of design and technology. after considering the differences between stakeholders, in order to provide depth and rigour and derive a consensus of what is the essence of design and technology, it was decided to undertake an initial investigation with a research cohort comprising of experienced design and technology teachers. the rationale for selecting participants from the group of stakeholders comes from considering the literature around previous studies into the subject, and it is clear that there is a gap in considering the voice of experienced teachers. this is not to say that other stakeholder groups would be unable to contribute to the debate, however they would do so from a different perspective. so, with this in mind, the study set out to answer the question: from the perspective of an experienced classroom practitioner; what are the principles which define design and technology? further, the answers to three sub-questions (sq) were also sought: 1. what are the attributes that design and technology offers to pupils who study it in secondary education? 2. what values does design and technology instil in students who study it? prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 29 3. what are the unique features that design and technology offers to the curriculum that other subjects do not? 1.2 research design in determining a suitable approach to the research design there were a number of factors which needed to be considered (van den akker, gravemeijer, mckenney, & nieveen, 2006). this reflects that the usual approach taken in the determination of a suitable methodology is to consider a range of theoretical options which could be used to answer the initial research question (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2013). with this in mind, a range of methods could have been adopted to determine a consensus from a group of individuals. these include the delphi technique (linstone & turoff, 1975), q methodology (müller & kals, 2004), nominal group technique (sample, 1984) or use of a consensus development program as developed by the united states department of health & human services (1977). two of these methodological approaches seek to use statistical methods and/or techniques in the ordering of qualitative responses gathered from research participants, namely delphi methodology and q methodology. each allows the determination of a rank ordering of statements, or criteria, which emerge from the study. this was seen as a highly desirable outcome, as it would enable exacting comparisons to be made in the future as the subject further evolves with policy and curriculum change. studies using delphi methodology and q methodology can be undertaken from afar and do not require the physical presence of participants in the same location. this was seen as being highly desirable as it allowed the best research cohort possible to be drawn together, irrespective of locality, and in so doing it sought to find the best possible field of suitable participants. 1.3 delphi technique assigning a defined theoretical framework to the delphi technique is something which has seemingly eluded those who have utilised it in the past. indeed, this proliferates in the work of those who have sought to critique and review its use from a conceptual stance, rather than that of researcher’s actively employing it in the course of their own study (hasson, prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 30 keeney, & mckenna, 2000; hsu & sandford, 2007; mckenna, 1994; powell, 2003; rowe & wright, 1999; williams & webb, 1994). rather, it is more fitting to consider that the delphi technique is efficient in employing its own underpinning theoretical framework which aligns with the aims of this study in the pursuit of its determination of a consensus of opinion of a defined group. in doing so, the method and methodological approach are defined by the application of the technique itself without need for recourse to additional theoretical frameworks. it is acknowledged that there are variants within the technique and these have developed over the years since its first inception. van zolingen and klaassen (2003) present a detailed journey of the evolution of identified variant models. the noticeable feature common to these variants seems to be their truncation of the process as a means to expedite the completion of the study. however, the structure which is used here is considered the ‘classical delphi technique’, which they acknowledge as offering the most rigour and affords the most accuracy in determining findings. overall, the technique seeks to draw opinion from experts and produce an outcome which is agreeable to all. as such it must start from an accepted stance that, for the participants, multiple constructed realities exist (pring, 2000). to commence the study with any other assertion would render the technique unusable as there would be no need to seek a consensus, and no variance in underlying opinion. it is also recognised that the derivation of a fixed definition of ‘what a subject is’ has its own limitations. initially the process involves the generation of a list of factors for consideration and this is shared with all participants. this could lead to participants being swayed by suggestions which they did not initially conceive of themselves. also, the emergence of a definition in response to the original research question can only really be considered to be valid at a snapshot in time. as discussed previously, the notion that every participant in the study situates their personal epistemology on a continuum stretching from rigidity (dualistic) to fluidity (non-dualistic) implies that the way they consider the formation of their knowledge will change over time. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 31 one of the original concepts emerging from early delphi technique work was to derive a method seeking a consensus amongst an identified cohort whilst allowing the researcher to maintain a degree of neutrality (dalkey, 1967). in doing so it is an assertion that they are positioned in such a way as to be regarded as an “uninvolved observer” (robson, 1993), where their role is to facilitate new knowledge creation without influencing the process. in his work, investigating bias and neutrality in the delphi technique, hallowell (2009) highlights several challenges to this delineated notion of research as being devoid of all bias and knowledge creation taking place in a domain isolated and uninfluenced by the researcher. drawing on a concept which presupposes that any researcher, or participant, has some vested interest in the work they are undertaking, he surmises: ‘bias may occur when one subconsciously uses cognitive shortcuts to reach erroneous conclusions’ (p. 1495). clearly this is undesirable in all research studies and more problematic to address than overt bias. norris (1997) describes an ideal situation for conducting research as one without undue influence deriving from any form of ‘researcher bias’. in seeking to achieve this, research using the delphi technique has been designed to minimise all forms of bias on the part of the researcher and the participants. but being cognisant of the work of hallowell (2009) it is recognised that the eradication of all forms of unconscious bias is somewhat more problematic to address throughout the process. consequently, this should be considered when undertaking any delphi study to ensure that no undue influence is brought to bear by either the researcher or the participants themselves. beyond issues of neutrality and bias, the delphi technique faces additional criticisms. hanafin undertook a systematic literature review where she considered seven different studies all employing the delphi technique spanning a time frame of three decades. she identifies a number of areas of concern from those studies, primarily that ‘participant anonymity may lead to a lack of accountability’ (hanafin, 2004, p.11) although this is something which could be levelled at any study collating anonymous responses. powell (2003) goes further and comments that this may lead to everyone aspiring to conform to an average opinion and as such, results represent the ‘lowest common denominator’ (p. 378). other limitations highlighted by hanafin in her work are the economic limitations of the logistics prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 32 involved in undertaking a delphi study, the determination of the number of rounds to be used, data analysis and the inference of a consensus. it was felt that effective research design would counter each of these issues. although participants were unknown to each other, they were known and identifiable to the researcher. this was essential as it enabled the researcher to pursue responses from those who did not return them in a timely fashion. consequently, it was never felt that participants felt a lack of accountability whilst engaging in the study. due to the nature of the profession of the participants, and their willingness to engage in the study from its inception, it was not envisaged that people would migrate towards the ‘lowest common denominator’ and this did not appear to prevail. given that the researcher used his own time and resources to undertake this study, there was no financial impact attributable. the number of rounds undertaken was in alignment with the work of others who had successfully undertaken delphi studies (duffield, 1993) and deemed their work to have reached saturation (barbour, 2003). issues surrounding the validity of the consensus arrived at the end of this process are addressed in the concluding part of this study. 1.4 participant selection the delphi technique does not lend itself to interviews nor focus groups (cohen et al., 2013). indeed, the latter goes against one of the significant reasons for selecting to undertake a study utilising the delphi technique; guaranteed participant anonymity. (dalkey, brown, & cochran, 1969). witkin and altschuld (1995) note that sample sizes attributed to delphi technique studies tend to be under 50 participants and frequently in the 15 – 20 range. there is debate around the optimum number of participants who can effectively contribute to such a methodological approach. powell (2003) goes on to surmise that effective data saturation occurs at around 20 participants. interestingly this is often regarded as the same level at which saturation of responses occurs in phenomenographic study (marton, 1986). beyond 20 participants, it is believed that saturation of opinion related to response occurs and variance in thought ceases prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 33 to occur, with work beyond this point being repetitive and not being contributory to the generation of new knowledge (mason, 2012). for these reasons it would be safe to assume that gathering further experts together beyond this apparent threshold will not yield significantly different (or better) results. being cognisant of the need for a defined cohort size, work was undertaken to investigate the attrition rates of participants in educational research studies. unable to find published work on this specific area, investigation of literature was widened to include fields beyond of education. in a significant piece of work in this area, dumville, torgerson and hewitt (2006) identify attrition rates of between 20% 25% in medical research studies. with this in mind, and with the initial self-nominating volunteers as participants, it was anticipated that a much lower rate of participant attrition would be applicable in this study. to this end, a sample size of 22 participants was selected, determined by considering an optimum number of participants as 20 with the addition of 10% (n=2) to reduce the impact of participant attrition. a study using the delphi technique requires participants to be ‘experts’ in the field of knowledge being investigated. for the purposes of this study the term ‘expert’ was determined by adherence to the following criterion: • professional qualification – participants selected held qualified teacher status (qts) or an equivalent qualification recognised by the dfe should they have gained qualification overseas. • academic qualification – participants were all graduates, holding an academic qualification linked to teaching and learning within the subject (at either undergraduate or postgraduate level). • performance review outcomes – participants all attested that they were successful in their most recent performance review. • lesson observation grade data – participants were asked to demonstrate high outcomes from observed lessons; consistently being rated as good with outstanding features as a baseline measure. ideally it was hoped that participants would be able prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 34 to demonstrate competence by being graded as outstanding across consecutive observations over a sustained period of time. • pupil/class attainment data – participants were asked to share publicly available gcse data about the classes they had taught who had been successful. however, it is recognised that sometimes extraneous factors outside of teacher control (like attendance, pupils who start late or move schools and so on) could have an impact on this criterion. • length of service in post – participants who had spent at least five years in post after qualification (this includes their newly qualified teacher (nqt) year) were deemed to be experienced. this aligns with the notion that disillusioned teachers tend to drop out early in their career (gurney-reed, 2015; marsh 2015a, 2015b). participants were selected after self-nomination following online dissemination of an opportunity to participate. having been shortlisted using the pre-defined criteria, along with an assurance that they understood the commitments involved, and a willingness to provide ethical consent for the work (british educational research association (bera), 2011), they were invited to participate. initially, 102 enquiries from interested parties were received, reduced to a total of 48 who were deemed to have met the criteria enabling them to be suitable for participation. the overriding factors for exclusion from the initial sample was that respondents had less than five years teaching experience, and/or they did not provide a complete response to the data set. from this short list, a final sample of 22 people were randomly selected from those determined to be eligible by means of a number randomiser programme. demographically, the cohort consisted of nine male and thirteen female participants. all were qualified teachers, holding the award of qts. participants had undergone a mix of degree and training pathways in pursuit of the award. the majority (n=13) held a post graduate certificate of education (pgce), a lesser number (n=8) held an undergraduate degree linked to their teacher training and a single respondent (n=1) achieved qualification by means of a certificate in education (cert. ed) programme. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 35 the number of years teaching experience varied across the cohort, with the majority falling in the range of six and fifteen years, inclusive. fig 1. number of years teaching experience. having identified the cohort, the first round of the study was undertaken. participants were asked three sub questions: 1. what are the attributes that design and technology offers to pupils who study it in secondary education? 2. what values does design and technology instil in students who study it? 3. what are the unique features that design and technology offers to the curriculum that other subjects do not? in round one, participants were encouraged to provide as many responses to each statement as they could in any format. words, phrases and sentences were returned in different quantities by each participant and a basic thematic coding (guest, macqueen, & namey, 2011) was undertaken. the purpose of the coding was to draw together similar responses and remove duplication. this was necessary due to the variance in terminology used. whilst there was some clear repetition of terms and phrases, others could be considered to more individual to a specific participant. this could be attributed to the setting 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 36-40 31-35 26-30 21-25 16-20 11-15 06-10 number of respondents n u m b e r o f y e a rs t e a ch in g e x p e ri e n ce prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 36 in which they worked combined with their career trajectory and even influences from the examination board(s) they were familiar with. in each case, there is a specific set of vocabulary which can be linked to these variables, the combination of which leads to different levels and variance within participant responses. by using the delphi methodology, it is possible to get participants to consider statements generated from round one in two different ways. the first being that they rank order these statements against each other; an attribute that mirrors work undertaken using q methodology (müller & kals, 2004). the second way of applying delphi methodology is to get participants to assign an individual value of importance to each of the statements being considered, using a likert scale. the former method is more complex for larger numbers of variables, and the latter allows independent thought and a circumstance where variables can be attributed the same value. it was decided to use the latter approach and get participants to assign a value to these statements using an eight-point likert scale. this is more expedient for participants as each statement is considered in its own right, so easily allowing for breaks in the work. it also affords participants the opportunity of being able to rank variables as being of the same significance. in the ranking rounds of this study, an eight-point likert scale was used with the omission of a null vale. this being the case, there were an even number of values which participants were able to use to in expressing their opinion about the significance of any statement being considered. the rationale behind using an eight-point scale is founded in the work of tsang (2012). in that study he determined that if there is a midpoint, or an arbitrary median value, on a ranking scale, then people using that ranking scale have a propensity to opt for the midpoint, or the “not applicable”, or the neutral ground option, prevails in cases where participants do not determine a weighting towards one end of the scale. in this case the likert scale used by participants only defined the end points on the continuum with descriptors of “essential” (ranking highest with a value of 8) and “desirable” (ranking lowest with a value of 1). this allowed participants to extrapolate their own meaning and interpretation for the inter range points on the scale. this approach was adopted in all prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 37 rounds of the study and against all statements requiring ranking. in order to present a cohesive approach to undertaking the investigative element of this study and improve clarity, it has been decided to consider each sub question individually. 2. findings and analysis 2.1 findings presentation of the data and subsequent analysis relevant to each sub question is considered and presented before moving on to data and analysis of the next. it is important to recognise that this approach has been undertaken to aid analysis and that the sub questions were asked together in the discrete rounds previously identified. sub question 1 (sq1): what are the attributes that design and technology offers to pupils who study it in secondary education? this opening question elicited a range of responses, some more narrative than others, for example: “there are many, but i would say; creativity, practical application of knowledge and skills, designing and making” participant 04 in such cases individual attributes were separated from the initial narrative to allow for ranking and focused judgements to be made in the second stage (initial ranking) following the applied methodology inherent in a delphi technique study. after sorting and grouping of similar phrases, the initial responses to this question were: • appeals to those who are less academically gifted • designing real world artefacts, for real world issues • develops designing skills • develops product analysis skills • empowers pupils to be autonomous • encourages and promotes pupil autonomy • helps develop criticality • helps pupils develop planning skills prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 38 • it is fun and engaging • it is stimulating • enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving • manipulation and combination of materials to make a product • opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation • opportunity to prepare for a career • promotes creativity • provides a challenge for all pupils, irrespective of ability • provides synergy between thinking and doing an interesting statement which emerged is the first; “appeals to those who are less academically gifted” as this shows a willingness for the cohort as a whole to identify that design and technology is, in their opinion, of lesser academic value than other subjects. rather than challenging what is often considered to be a misconception that design and technology is less academically challenging then other subjects, (eggleston, 1996; barlex, 2007; green, 2016) it can be construed as reinforcing this idea. by inference, it is also reinforcing the idea that the place of design and technology is not as an academic subject, but rather as a vocational subject. having confirmed the initial set of statements, these were circulated to the research cohort for comment and initial ranking using the eight-point scale as previously described. initial rankings placed the statements in the following order, the mean value attained is shown alongside each for reference (fig. 2). results indicate little numerical difference between statements. this can be explained when consideration is given to the method of determining the statements themselves. as they are derived from the opinions of those undertaking the research, it is not surprising that these statements are perceived as holding value by the participants. in alignment with the delphi study approach, this list was then recirculated, alongside the statistical mean values attained. participants were asked to reconsider, and reassess their judgements made against each of the statements in the previous round. again, they were asked to grade these statements using the same eight-point likert scale. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 39 enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving 7.23 designing real world artefacts, for real world issues 7.20 promotes creativity 7.16 opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation 7.08 encourages and promotes pupil autonomy 7.06 develops designing skills 7.02 it is fun and engaging 6.99 it is stimulating 6.95 helps develop criticality 6.93 develops product analysis skills 6.90 manipulation and combination of materials to make a product 6.88 provides a challenge for all pupils, irrespective of ability 6.85 appeals to those who are less academically gifted 6.81 provides synergy between thinking and doing 6.77 empowers pupils to be autonomous 6.72 helps pupils develop planning skills 6.65 opportunity to prepare for a career 6.58 fig 2. initial ranking of responses to sq1 in considering the data for sq1, it is apparent that there is some movement in the ranking order of descriptor statements. not only was there a change in their relative positions, but their statistical mean has changed in every case at the second stage of ranking. it is worth highlighting that the principle purpose of the statistical mean attributed to each statement is in ranking the statement descriptors, rather than providing a definitive value for each. previous studies which utilised a delphi methodological approach such as gupta & clarke (1996), hasson et al. (2000), kenney et al. (2006) observed similar occurrences. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 40 position position difference statement descriptor being considered mean mean difference round 1 round 2 round 1 round 2 1 1 0 enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving 7.23 7.48 +0.25 2 2 0 designing real world artefacts, for real world issues 7.20 7.35 +0.15 5 3 -2 encourages and promotes pupil autonomy 7.06 7.30 +0.24 3 4 +1 promotes creativity 7.16 7.10 -0.06 6 5 -1 develops designing skills 7.02 7.04 +0.02 7 6 -1 it is fun and engaging 6.99 6.97 -0.02 8 7 -1 it is stimulating 6.95 6.84 -0.11 4 8 +4 opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation 7.08 6.83 -0.25 9 9 0 helps develop criticality 6.93 6.80 -0.13 10 10 0 develops product analysis skills 6.90 6.78 -0.12 11 11 0 manipulation and combination of materials to make a product 6.88 6.70 -0.18 13 12 -1 appeals to those who are less academically gifted 6.81 6.40 -0.41 14 13 -1 provides synergy between thinking and doing 6.77 6.40 -0.37 12 14 +2 provides a challenge for all pupils, irrespective of ability 6.85 6.38 -0.47 15 15 0 empowers pupils to be autonomous 6.72 6.32 -0.40 16 16 0 helps pupils develop planning skills 6.65 6.28 -0.37 17 17 0 opportunity to prepare for a career 6.58 6.20 -0.38 fig 3. position of statements for sq1 after two ranking rounds. the process was then repeated for a third, and final, round. again, the outcomes were calculated and these, along with the original statements were shared with participants who were asked to provide a value judgement against each. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 41 position position difference statement descriptor being considered mean mean difference round 2 round 3 round 2 round 3 1 1 0 enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving 7.48 7.62 +0.14 2 2 0 designing real world artefacts, for real world issues 7.35 7.55 +0.20 3 3 0 encourages and promotes pupil autonomy 7.30 7.51 +0.21 4 4 0 promotes creativity 7.10 7.34 +0.24 5 5 0 develops designing skills 7.04 7.10 +0.06 6 6 0 it is fun and engaging 6.97 7.01 +0.04 7 7 0 it is stimulating 6.84 7.00 +0.16 8 8 0 opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation 6.83 6.94 +0.11 10 9 -1 develops product analysis skills 6.78 6.82 +0.04 9 10 +1 helps develop criticality 6.80 6.80 0.00 14 11 -3 provides a challenge for all pupils, irrespective of ability 6.38 6.70 +0.32 11 12 +1 manipulation and combination of materials to make a product 6.70 6.61 -0.09 12 13 +1 appeals to those who are less academically gifted 6.40 6.53 +0.13 15 14 -1 empowers pupils to be autonomous 6.32 6.42 +0.10 13 15 +2 provides synergy between thinking and doing 6.40 6.41 +0.01 16 16 0 helps pupils develop planning skills 6.28 6.35 +0.07 17 17 0 opportunity to prepare for a career 6.20 6.33 +0.13 fig 4. position of statements for sq1 after the third, and final, ranking round. final analysis of the outcomes from sq1 illustrate that there is still movement within the statistical mean of individual statements. lower down the listing there is also movement in the rank order between responses. however, the results reflect that consensus has been reached on the first eight statements. so, in seeking to answer sq1, determination of the data has resulted in the following hierarchal list of considered responses: 1. enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 42 2. designing real world artefacts, for real world issues 3. encourages and promotes pupil autonomy 4. promotes creativity 5. develops designing skills 6. it is fun and engaging 7. it is stimulating 8. opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation the process was then repeated for the remaining two sub-questions; sub-question 2 (sq2); what values does design and technology instil in students who study it? also, for sub question 3 (sq3); what are the unique features that design and technology offers to the curriculum that other subjects do not? the process for determining responses and reaching a consensus amongst the research sample was identical to that which has been articulated in the narrative for sq1. as there was no deviance from the aforementioned process, for reasons of brevity, only the final data set will be presented following which there will be an analysis of the outcomes. sub question 2 (sq2): what values does design and technology instil in students who study it? as in the determining of a set of consensus statements for sq1, the first round of the study was used to elicit a set of responses from the research cohort. in a similar finding to that initially experienced in gathering the opening statements for sq1, responses varied greatly from individual participants. these ranged from single word responses, to bullet pointed lists, to short descriptive sentences. they were typified by responses such as: “design and technology is a subject that applies knowledge and skills in the pursuit of realising a solution to a problem” participant 11 “fun, dynamic, active, creative and engaging” participant 17 using this set of statements, an identical process was followed to that demonstrated in the three rounds described in determining a consensus outcome for sq1. consequently, for the sake of brevity, the set of statements are presented here in their final ranking order, prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 43 highlighting positional moves between their final position and their subsequent ranking position determined at the end of the second round. position position difference statement descriptor being considered mean mean difference round 2 round 3 round 2 round 3 1 1 0 trial and error in pursuit of solving a problem 7.72 7.81 +0.09 2 2 0 allows pupils to develop empathy, recognising the needs of others 7.68 7.77 +0.09 3 2 -1 develops appreciation for all 7.64 7.77 +0.13 4 4 0 provides freedom for individuals, and groups to make decisions 7.60 7.71 +0.11 5 5 0 effort and determination of the individual 7.58 7.64 +0.06 6 6 0 working collegiately in teams to develop a common understanding 7.55 7.60 +0.05 7 7 0 encourages effort and perseverance 7.53 7.58 +0.05 8 8 0 promotes opportunity for innovation 7.50 7.55 +0.05 9 9 0 ability to be creative 7.49 7.51 +0.02 11 10 -1 quality, in both design and manufacture 7.41 7.45 +0.04 10 11 1 being organised, sequential and methodical 7.45 7.43 -0.02 12 12 0 practical ability as well as intellect and the link(s) between them 7.36 7.33 -0.03 13 13 0 allows for forward thinking, and conceptual design 7.35 7.27 -0.08 fig 5. position of statements for sq2 after the third, and final, ranking round. analysis of the data reveals that in the final ranking a number of respondents increased the value they placed on the top ten statements. this is evident by the rise in the statistical mean for these statements between the second and third ranking rounds. there are also two statements ranking in equal second position. this could lead to the conclusion that saturation of responses has not yet occurred with respect to sq2. if this assumption is accurate, then it suggests that this question may have benefited from another round of ranking by participants to ensure that a consensus in the final ranking order has definitively been reached. in alignment with the work of witkin and altschuld (1995), prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 44 statements of equal value can be considered as being agreed, however, the caveat which is usually applied is that there is no movement in the ranking order between rounds, not that they have achieved the same mean value. due to the limitations of potentially not reaching saturation (barbour, 2001), despite following best practice guidelines (duffield, 1993) it is felt that these two descriptors should still be included due to their relatively high placing in the ranking. being cognisant of the potential limitation outlined previously, it can be said that the study has revealed that the participants have determined that the following statements provide a hierarchal set of values which provide an answer to sq2 although they be a slight amount of uncertainty to the definitive positioning of two of the statements what values does design and technology instil in students who study it? 1. trial and error in pursuit of solving a problem 2. allows pupils to develop empathy, recognising the needs of others * 2. develops appreciation for all * 4. provides freedom for individuals, and groups to make decisions 5. effort and determination of the individual 6. working collegiately in teams to develop a common understanding 7. encourages effort and perseverance 8. promotes opportunity for innovation 9. ability to be creative * note: statements of equal ranking sub question 3 (sq3): what are the unique features that design and technology offers to the curriculum that other subjects do not? the method followed in determining a consensus to sq3 followed the same process as that adopted for sq1 and sq2. following the initial collection of responses, a set of statements were drafted and circulated to participants. three participants requested that additional statements were added to those circulated, or that existing ones were modified so prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 45 as to include elements for consideration which they felt had been omitted from the statements they were asked to assess and evaluate. given the complexities and subjective nature of determining what is a “unique feature” of a given subject, it is maybe not be surprising that this was the outcome of the first stage. indeed, maybe it is more surprising that this did not happen with the previous two sub questions due to breadth and depth of experience each participant brought with them and the diverse nature of responses initially recorded. in analysing the responses to sq3 it can be seen that a number of the statistical means attained by some of these statements were very similar, leading to the conclusion that many of the participants struggled to prioritise one statement over another (fig 6). in so doing, one can further surmise that many of these statements attained scoring grades in the final round of ranking of either seven or eight from participants in the study. position position difference statement descriptor being considered mean mean difference round 2 round 3 round 2 round 3 1 1 0 combining different materials together to make a product 7.81 7.88 +0.07 2 2 0 applying theoretical knowledge and practical skill to develop products and make things better 7.80 7.84 +0.04 3 3 0 practical application of other subjects (maths, science) 7.78 7.83 +0.05 4 4 0 designing (and making) real solutions for real problems 7.77 7.78 +0.01 5 5 0 designing for future needs and opportunities 7.71 7.72 +0.01 6 6 0 problem solving; realise there is more than one way of arriving at a solution 7.67 7.70 +0.03 8 7 -1 promotes creativity 7.63 7.63 0 9 8 -1 fosters innovation 7.60 7.62 +0.02 7 9 2 allows students to develop real empathy and appreciate the needs of others 7.65 7.59 -0.06 fig 6. position of statements for sq3 after the third, and final, ranking round. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 46 having concluded the three rounds of ranking, it can be seen that the following has been arrived at as a consensus for statements which appertain to sq3: what are the unique features that design and technology offers to the curriculum that other subjects do not? 1. combining different materials together to make a product 2. applying theoretical knowledge and practical skill to develop products and make things better 3. practical application of other subjects (maths, science) 4. designing (and making) real solutions for real problems 5. designing for future needs and opportunities 6. problem solving; realise there is more than one way of arriving at a solution there are striking similarities in these statements most noticeably between statements four and five which relate to the design aspect of the subject. it is noticeable that the research cohort wanted the inclusion of “and making” adding to the fourth statement. interestingly in terms of the english and welsh national curriculum this has echoes of past attainment targets (ats) and the associated programmes of study (pos) outlined in an early version of the national curriculum orders (dfe, 1995), where designing and making were considered as separate entities. these have been subsequently been removed in a number of curriculum revisions since then including the latest variant (dfe, 2016b). considering this, if we consider the length of teaching service (fig 1) of the research participants, then this particular policy may have been more influential than first anticipated. using the data in fig 1 it is possible to extrapolate an approximate age profile for the cohort, given that teachers can only enter training following a set period of schooling. it is likely that a significant number of participants were either pupils themselves at the time this policy was enacted, or they were educators tasked with its delivery and implementation. it is therefore likely that exposure to this disaggregation of ‘designing’ and ‘making’ has shaped and influenced the thinking of the participants, either consciously or subconsciously. thus, participants associate these terms with the identity of the subject. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 47 2.2 comparative analysis. comparative analysis shows that there are some trends within the data which transcend the sub questions themselves: all statements consensus statements no. of initial responses max mean value min mean value range max mean value min mean value range sq1 17 7.62 6.33 1.29 7.62 6.94 0.68 sq2 13 7.81 7.27 0.54 7.81 7.51 0.30 sq3 9 7.83 7.39 0.44 7.88 7.59 0.29 fig 7. comparison of mean values and range of mean values across sub questions. the number of initial responses decreases as more questions are asked. this suggests that there is more clarity of thinking in the cohort as they progress through the study. this is in line with other studies (clayton, 1997; linstone & turoff, 1975; mckenna, 1994) which have adopted a delphi technique, attributed to deeper and more reflective thinking by research participants as the study progresses. it is also evident that the range of statistical mean values of the statements decreases as the study progresses, both when considering all statements and when considering consensus statements. this further consolidates the assertion that participants are refining their thinking as the study progresses. having now determined consensus answers to each of the sub questions it is possible to merge the outcomes and sort these into rank order based on mean values. in combining individual consensus statements, it is possible to draw further trends from the data (fig 8). the research cohort ranked, on the whole, unique features of the subject (sq3) above values of the subject (sq2), and in turn values of the subject (sq2) above attributes (sq1). there is no evidence that other delphi based studies consider the relationships between sub questions in such a fashion. consequently, there is nothing to compare this trending observation with. only by undertaking another study adopting with same approach to design and data analysis would it be possible to see if this was more than coincidence. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 48 consensus descriptor mean value sq 1 sq 2 sq 3 combining different materials together to make a product 7.88 ✓ applying theoretical knowledge and practical skill to develop products and make things better 7.84 ✓ practical application of other subjects (maths, science) 7.83 ✓ trial and error in pursuit of solving a problem 7.81 ✓ designing (and making) real solutions for real problems 7.78 ✓ allows pupils to develop empathy, recognising the needs of others 7.77 ✓ develops appreciation for all 7.77 ✓ designing for future needs and opportunities 7.72 ✓ provides freedom for individuals, and groups to make decisions 7.71 ✓ problem solving; realise there is more than one way of arriving at a solution 7.70 ✓ effort and determination of the individual 7.64 ✓ enables pupils to engage in real world problem solving 7.62 ✓ working collegiately in teams to develop a common understanding 7.60 ✓ encourages effort and perseverance 7.58 ✓ designing real world artefacts, for real world issues 7.55 ✓ promotes opportunity for innovation 7.55 ✓ ability to be creative 7.51 ✓ encourages and promotes pupil autonomy 7.51 ✓ promotes creativity 7.34 ✓ develops designing skills 7.10 ✓ it is fun and engaging 7.01 ✓ it is stimulating 7.00 ✓ opportunity to learn from modelling and experimentation 6.94 ✓ fig 8. combined list of consensus descriptors, sorted by mean value. prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 49 3. conclusion in comparison to the current iteration of the national curriculum (dfe, 2016a, 2016b) findings from this study suggest that those tasked with teaching the subject of design and technology view some of its underlying values, attributes and principles differently to the curriculum document which defines it. this conclusion is drawn through the derivation and inclusion of statements by the research participants in this study which are not evident in curriculum documentation. these differences allude to the fact that the subject means different things to individual stakeholder groups, so it is little wonder that those who work outside of it struggle to understand its nuances and meanings (hardy, 2016b). without commonality in an approach to its definition it is hard to see how the subject can move forward in the face of constantly changing policy (dfe, 2011, 2013, 2016b) and educational direction (dfe, 2016a). this is in stark contrast to the practices seen in other parts of the world where an agreed and understood definition of the subject exists (jones & de vries, 2009). in applying the delphi technique to this study, the process has arrived at the point of data saturation through multiple rounds of engagement by participants. the study has enabled participants to derive a consensus of opinion in determining responses applicable to each of the research sub questions (sq1, sq2 & sq3). however, it is still clear that there is some degree of overlap between responses to each of the sub questions. in considering this overlap one must determine if the three sub questions actually answer the main research question, focusing on defining what design and technology is? from the outset, participants were provided with the overarching research question and the sub questions and at no stage did anyone question the relationship between them. the inference drawn is that to this group of participants, the questions did indeed define what design and technology is, from their perspective. whilst not asserting that the findings presented here will halt the downward trajectory of uptake in the subject from pupils, it does suggest the principles on which a subject could be formed to take over from design and technology should it cease to exist in the future. burns (2014) and steeg (2008) argue that a new or refined subject which maintains the fundamental values of design and technology would be valued by those currently engaged in prism 1(2) values in education prism-journal.blackburn.ac.uk 50 the delivery of design and technology. this study has provided evidence of what those fundamental values mean to a group of classroom practitioners. it also offers further narrative that can be considered by those working outside of the subject in trying to understand it. in seeking to further validate the findings of this work, the opinions of other stakeholders should be canvassed to see if they concur with the outcomes. using the same methodological approach, it would be possible to undertake comparative studies using different identified research cohorts from a range of stakeholders, these could include; pupils, parents, employers, industrialists and teacher educators amongst others or indeed an amalgam of different stakeholders. considering next steps after this study, the outcomes from it do not provide a justification for the retention of design and technology. neither do they present a view of where the subject should progress too in the future. rather, the findings presented here seek to establish a base line from which any move forward can take place. should the same staff be involved in the evolution of the subject who participated in this research, then paying due consideration to what they value about it most will ensure cooperation and “buy-in” as it evolves. if their views are to be considered as representative of the sector, then this provides a 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(1995). planning and conducting needs assessments: a practical guide. sage. prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 53 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 developing a creative pedagogy to understand the university experience of non-traditional students helena gosling,1 lol burke,2 and sarah maclennan3 1 school of justice studies, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (h.j.gosling@ljmu.ac.uk) 2 school of justice studies, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (l.burke@ljmu.ac.uk) 3 liverpool screen school, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (s.a.maclennan@ljmu.ac.uk) received: 04/02/2020 accepted for publication: 16/06/2020 published: 18/07/2020 abstract despite the presence of a widening participation agenda, people with criminal convictions face a number of barriers accessing and participating in higher education (office for students, 2019). this may be due to unspent criminal convictions (unlock, 2018), limited confidence and self-esteem (champion and noble, 2016), a lack of previous educational attainment (prison reform trust, 2017) and/or presence of risk-adverse, bureaucratic, university admission processes (bhattacharya et al., 2013). as a result, people with criminal convictions are not only under-represented throughout the sector (unlock, 2018) but completely overlooked when it comes to understanding their university experience. to address this longstanding issue, the authors have developed an educational opportunity (utilising the learning together programme) for criminal justice academics, students, practitioners and service users to come together and learn from one another through lived experience, professional practice and creative pedagogy. learning together was originally developed and implemented by dr amy ludlow and dr ruth armstrong at the university of cambridge to provide opportunities for university students to learn alongside people serving a custodial sentence (armstrong and ludlow, 2016). keywords: higher education; creative pedagogy; criminal convictions; creative writing; learning together 1. introduction despite the presence of a widening participation agenda, people with criminal convictions face a number of barriers to accessing and participating in higher education (office for students, 2019). this may be due to unspent criminal convictions (unlock, 2018), limited confidence and self-esteem (champion and noble, 2016), a lack of previous educational attainment (prison reform trust, 2017) and the presence of risk-adverse, bureaucratic, university admission processes (bhattacharya et al., 2013). as a result, people with criminal convictions are not only under-represented throughout the sector (unlock, 2018) but completely overlooked when it comes to understanding their university experience. to address this longstanding issue, the authors have developed a localised adaptation of the established educational initiative https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:h.j.gosling@ljmu.ac.uk mailto:l.burke@ljmu.ac.uk mailto:s.a.maclennan@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9838-4185 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4379-9070 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-0536 prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 54 3(1) called learning together, to enable criminal justice academics, students, practitioners and service users to come together and learn from one another through lived experience, and professional practice.1 learning together originally produced by dr amy ludlow and dr ruth armstrong at the university of cambridge, aimed to provide opportunities for university students to learn alongside people serving a custodial sentence (armstrong and ludlow, 2016). the purpose of the initiative is to promote learning amongst and between people who, ordinarily, would not have met or had the opportunity to learn from one another within custodial environments (armstrong and ludlow, 2016), through the creation of learning spaces. through learning together, communities of practice develop that hold the potential to address deficits in education provision in prison, whilst simultaneously challenging the exclusivity that surrounds the educational experience of many university students (armstrong and ludlow, 2016, p. 10). although in its original guise armstrong and ludlow’s learning together programme was delivered throughout the custodial estate, it has also become a model and a springboard for promoting inclusive learning environments beyond the prison gates (gosling & burke, 2019). 1 the widening participation agenda was championed by the new labour government (1997-2010) to increase and improve the number of university students from nontraditional backgrounds through targeted outreach initiatives and financial support (burke, 2012) in an attempt to restructure higher education based on the notion of equality (armstrong, 2008). it claims to pay particular attention to those who are from lower socio-economic groups and/or considered to have limited participation in schools and local neighbourhoods (ibid). research suggests that those who are at greatest risk of experiencing social exclusion as a result of factors such as poverty, lack of education, unemployment and/or being a member of a minority ethnic group are disproportionately likely to end up in the criminal justice system (mair and may, 1997). it is therefore unsurprising to find that along with mature and first-in-family students, people with criminal convictions typically share characteristics that the universities and colleges admissions since 2016, the authors of this paper (from criminal justice and creative writing backgrounds) have developed a unique version of learning together, one that is based in a university as opposed to a prison. the programme provides students with a unique, multidisciplinary curriculum that spans two cognate disciplines: criminology and creative writing; (our university-based adaptation of this initiative will be identified and referred to as ‘learning together’ throughout the paper). grounded in principles of creative pedagogy,2 learning together provides an opportunity for students to enhance their understanding of criminal justice, from an academic perspective, while at the same time engage in a process of personal, professional and pedagogic reflection. throughout this paper, the authors suggest that a locally developed creative pedagogy facilitates a better insight into the university experience of students with lived experience of the criminal justice system. this insight illustrates that through the development of learning together as a university-based a creative pedagogy, means that students can be encouraged to engage in an ongoing process of (re)framing narrative;3 furthermore, this not only works towards building an ‘authentic self-expression’ (vanlint, 2017), but enhances creative capital: the capacity to imagine and express new possibilities through creative activity service (ucas) and uk government call disadvantaged (unlock, 2018). people who possess characteristics that are not normally associated with entrants to higher education are typically referred to as ‘non-traditional’ students. 2 selkrig and keamy (2017) state that creative pedagogy as an approach to learning, knowledge engagement and coconstruction includes elements of creative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative learning. for the purposes of this paper, the authors highlight a distinction between the general principles associated with creative pedagogy, and the curricular practices associated with the localised development of their own creative pedagogy with the use of capitalised and lower case first letters respectively. 3 (re)framing narrative is a way of viewing, experiencing and exploring events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more useful alternatives (comaford, 2018). prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 55 3(1) (fairlie, 2012). as well as the capacity to engage with and generate knowledge creatively, participants are presented with an open learning framework, where they are free to articulate and build reflections of their creatively emergent selves; this in turn means that they start to understand, trust and respect themselves (vanlint, 2017). to illustrate how creative pedagogy provides a platform for non-traditional students to narrate their university experience, the forthcoming discussion is divided into four parts. we provide an overview of learning together within the host institution, followed by a concise insight into the role of reflective practice. drawing upon work from learning together students,4 we demonstrate how and why students with experience of the criminal justice system utilise the process of (re)framing narrative as part of the creative pedagogy to build creative capital. the conclusion illustrates how creative pedagogy can be utilised to create a safe space where pedagogically-informed risks can be taken to enhance creative capital. 2. learning together since september 2016, dr helena gosling and professor lol burke have delivered a university-based learning together programme for males and females who have personal and / or professional experience of the criminal justice system, to learn alongside postgraduate students from the host institution. it is the only learning together initiative based within a higher education setting that works alongside criminal justice services to create a community of practice, populated by people with academic, professional and lived experience of criminal justice. lave and wenger (1991) suggest a community of practice consists of a group of people who share a craft or profession. communities of practice can evolve naturally due to participants’ experiences of a particular area, or they can be deliberately created with the goal of gaining knowledge and insight. communities of practice are formed by and for people who wish to engage in a process of collective learning (wenger-trayner and 4 the authors’ obtained ethical approval from the host institutions research ethics committee to include extracts wenger-trayner, 2015). it is through the process of sharing information and lived experience that people learn from each other and generate opportunities to develop both personally and professionally (lave and wenger, 1991). although flexible, learning together aims to engage 20 students per academic year; ten from the postgraduate community and ten from local criminal justice services. the programme consists of 15, twohour sessions, taught across the academic year from october to april. each session explores the theory, policy and practice of a contemporary penological issue, through a series of accessible questions, such as ‘how do we explain crime and criminality?’ as learning together has grown and developed, the authors and course co-creators became increasingly frustrated with the pedagogical traditions, norms and expectations of the discipline; the performative or stylistic requirements associated with traditional criminal justice studies were unable to adequately capture and integrate students’ lived experience into taught sessions. the emerging dichotomy between the ambition and delivery of learning together meant that we had to improvise and develop a cross-disciplinary curriculum that was more able to work alongside the insight, stories and lived experience of students involved with the programme. since 2018, learning together students have been given the opportunity to attend a weekly creative response session (directed by sarah maclennan) to explore topics such as: observation and discovery; a day in the life / a day in a past life; memory; places of (un)belonging; discovery, chance and synchronicity; stereotypes and archetypes; points of view; the decisive moment; storytelling and alternative narratives. the aim of the creative response programme is to provide a pedagogical platform for students to collaboratively engage with issues, events and stories that are meaningful to them through the medium of poetry, short stories, flash fiction and creative non-fiction (gosling, 2019). each of the creative response sessions provide an opportunity for academic insight, lived from students work produced during the academic year 2018/19 and 2019/20. prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 56 3(1) experience and professional practice to be synthesized, discussed and challenged in a more meaningful way. 3. reflective practice from the inception of learning together, the authors made the decision to engage in collaborative teaching, supported by the principles of reflective practice. collaborative teaching takes place when two or more people share responsibility for educating some or all students in a classroom (villa et al., 2008). it involves the distribution of responsibility amongst a group of people for the planning, instruction and / or evaluation of a classroom of students (villa et al., 2008). reflective practice – a process whereby educators reflect and learn from their own teaching experiences in order to develop their pedagogic skills and professional practice (ashwin et al., 2020), is a process that facilitates teaching, learning and understanding (mathew et al., 2017) whilst simultaneously promoting self-awareness and critical evaluation skills (ashwin et al., 2020). it can occur individually as a form of introspection or as part of a reflective conversation with students, mentors and/or peers (ashwin et al., 2020). after each taught session, the authors engaged in a process of self-reflection through the manual recording of noteworthy events and points for further consideration. in addition, the authors regularly met to discuss the programme and student participation. although reflection is commonly associated with the process of looking back and examining the past in order to learn from what has happened, it is also increasingly associated with reflecting in action (schon, 1983). reflection in action aims to encourage the exploration of thoughts and feelings (helyer, 2015), as well as look for insight to maximise self-awareness (lacan, 1977). reflective practice brought the authors closer together, both personally and professionally, given the frequency, intensity and depth of discussion that, more often than not, covered difficult areas and occurrences not typically encountered. this subsequently strengthened our approach, and indeed ability, to engage with the concept of collaborative teaching. gosling (2019) notes how participation in learning together holds the ability to manoeuvre students – and indeed staff – towards personally and professionally challenging learning experiences. the pedagogic push and pull associated with the design and delivery of learning together motivated the authors to build a more inclusive, creative pedagogy. in building a creative pedagogy, the authors have generated pockets of nontraditional practice that shed light on how students, with experience of the criminal justice system, make sense of their university experience. drawing upon extracts from students’ work from creative response sessions, we explore how and why creative pedagogy engages students in an ongoing process of a (re)framing narrative during their university activities. although limited in generalisability and external validity, we illustrate how a creative pedagogy can go some way to shed light on a characteristically under-researched area. we aim to capture experiences, stories, thoughts and feelings amongst students who are typically overlooked in terms of theory, policy and practice by the higher education sector. 4. ‘tell me your stories’: creative pedagogy & narrating the university experience the pedagogic borrowing (infusing pedagogic elements from different disciplines) involved in the design and delivery of the creative pedagogy, provided a way by which longstanding traditions, norms and practices associated with a particular discipline could be adapted and altered. infusing pedagogic styles from different disciplines enabled students and staff to discover and engage in creative practices. the curricular practices associated with the development of the creative pedagogy, thus generated flexible learning spaces that allowed students to freely create and offer their stories and associations. this subsequently reinforced the idea that every learner and their autobiographic experience, matters. in being encouraged to view life experience as valid and meaningful source material for creative writing projects, important value was added to the lives of individuals who have, for one reason or another, felt excluded, insignificant and / or worthless. the process of the (re)framing narrative approach encouraged students to confront thoughts, feelings and experiences that may have made life, and indeed the university experience, more challenging. in addition, the provision of opportunities to discuss shared experiences and to prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 57 3(1) examine them from differing points of view, created epiphanic moments of learning and mutual understanding. this also had a subsequent impact on student’s creative capital. in one instance, a student’s experience of being in the dock at court was compared with a tutor’s experience of serving as a member of the jury. during a discussion, the student suggested that from the dock it appeared that members of the jury did not care about the accused and the case. the tutor listened and went on to explain how anxious the experience made her; losing sleep and worrying about her decision. later, as part of a writing exercise, the student described the experience of being in the dock. behind the glass screen you have full view of the court, looking straight at the judge who is looking at you. you’re thinking what is he going to give you? cos he ain’t letting you out. your brief and the pp are talking about the case, talking as if you are not there. you try to argue something that you don’t agree with but you are not heard. you get annoyed. you bang on the glass. everyone looks. the judge gets the hump. your brief is playing table tennis with the pp, arguing points but the judge speaks up, he’s heard enough. you think you’re done, off to the cells. even before the judge gives his speech you know what he’s going to do. (student 1; male, 55, memoir writing excerpt, 2018). armstrong and ludlow (2016) suggest that people’s mind-sets influence their capacity to learn. when told about the creative response programme, students with experience of the criminal justice system typically viewed creativity as an activity that was for ‘other people’, as they were ‘not the creative type.’ this not only intrinsically dampens (if not destroys) confidence in their stories, experience(s) and ultimately themselves, but raises significant questions about how people see and define the notion of creativity. meshack (citied in kasanoff, 2014) suggests that the need to be creative is part of being human. one of the reasons people believe that they are not creative is due to an ingrained fear of failing (christensen, 2012). inspired by a famous quotation by sir ken robinson (2010), if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original, we foster an environment where the notion of ‘getting it wrong’ is banished. this is an important component of creative pedagogy as many students who have experience of the criminal justice system have low self-esteem and are likely to have endured numerous ‘failures’ in life – in school, at work, family life and other significant relationships (samenow, 2012). through an interrogation of the fear of failure, the creative response sessions allowed students to recall and reconnect with moments in life when they enjoyed an activity for its own sake. when they played with toy cars, with lego, with sand, nobody told them that they were ‘playing wrong.’ indeed, we all have experience of creating our own imaginative worlds and getting lost in them. similarly, in the classroom and the creative learning sessions, the paper, the pens, the words became ‘toys’; and as such, our students were encouraged to ‘enjoy playing’. having reconnected with a love of writing, a participant reflected on his experience of the creative response sessions: last time i wrote i was in primary school. a long time ago. would get lost in my writing, like i was living the story, being the hero and the villain. anything was possible in my story. mr smith would let me do it because he knew i was working, not playing the class clown. i was being creative and he liked reading my stories. suppose he could see something because he’d say ‘write a story’ and i would and the pen would flow. time for big school and i didn’t write another story – or anything – until i came to uni and chose creative writing. was quiet at first. only wrote a few lines. but then, as the weeks went on, i started to get back the buzz i got when i was younger. can go deep with some of my writing but i’ve been told it’s good. i like writing now because i can express things and can tell my story, from another point of view and from mine. (student 1; male, 55, memoir writing excerpt, 2019) allirajah (2015) defined being a writer as the hunger to express. disrupting negative thought patterns and self-classification (such as ‘i can’t write a poem’, ‘i can’t spell’ or even ‘i’m not very interesting, my life is boring’) is therefore a key feature of our notion of creative pedagogy, and indeed, creative capital. allied with this, gordon-smith (2007, p. 231) writes, ‘if you remember only one thing, make sure it is this: what makes your writing powerful and unique is you, so always learn to trust your instincts.’ through the creative response classes and the expressive activities developed as part prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 58 3(1) of the creative pedagogy, each student begins to engage with the natality of their emergent self. this includes (but is not limited to) creative teaching approaches, teaching for creativity, and creative learning techniques. during the first taught session, students are required to conduct an interview with the self and think about questions such as ‘what do i know?’ the openness of the themes promote a focus and appreciation of the personal, the mundane or the everyday. this promotes a gentle form of critical consciousness, with the aim of increasing confidence and belief in the self. this exercise prompts comments such as, ‘i know how to make a brilliant brew’; ‘i know how to clean and strip a rifle’; ‘i know how to keep calm now when i’m angry’. the statements develop into starting points for stories, which then lead on to wider discussions of previous life experiences; this exercise enables those who have previously been unheard to uncover and utilise a space to speak and self-discover. to illustrate this, student 2 (male, 28 [2019]) provided the following insight: i feel more welcome here than i ever thought i would. some little scally raised in netherton doesn’t belong in uni, i would tell myself. but since coming here all those thoughts have dissipated. i do belong here. i have a hunger for knowledge and the best part of me can truly shine when i am challenged. i love debating a point and love hearing other people’s thoughts. (student 2; male, 28; autobiographic writing excerpt, 2019) creating a space for students to take risks and engage with the emergent transformative self is an important component of creative pedagogy (and indeed the accumulation of creative capital). this is the case particularly amongst those students with experience of the criminal justice system, as they express how they feel ‘different’ to other students, and see university as a place that is ‘not for them’ (gosling & burke, 2019). the initial sense of (un)belonging amongst students with lived experience of the criminal justice system is unsurprising, given the politicisation of access to higher education for people with criminal convictions, combined with a growing homogenisation of the higher education sector (universities uk, 2018). inadvertently, the creative response part of the creative pedagogic programme provides an opportunity for the personal to become political. through the pedagogically informed exploration of thoughts, feelings and experiences, in and around the concepts of identity and power, students are able to navigate emotions associated with (un)belonging and explore issues of powerlessness and feelings of inferiority, whilst at the same time build creative capital. one student explored the issues around belonging in a piece of reflective writing. so much has happened in these past two years. my perspective has changed so much. places i used to fit in now seem alien to me and old friends like strangers. i have changed as a person and so my needs have changed as well as my likes and dislikes. my friends all take drugs, drink and smoke weed and now, looking back, i have nothing in common with most, other than our mutual love of cannabis and now even that is gone for me. now i feel out of place with my old friends and have started reconnecting with people i have more in common with. i no longer belong on the streets. i belong in the library, the classroom, the work environments suits me better. i have this hunger inside me to do better, to be better and so now finally i know where i truly belong. (student 2; male, 28; excerpt of reflective writing, 2019). the following extract is taken from a piece of creative writing entitled ‘the j word’. it was written by a learning together student during a creative response session that focused on archetypes and stereotypes; the student expresses how he felt after a tutor used the term ‘junkie’ in class. when i heard the j word, it put my back up. i get annoyed and think ‘who is he to say that?’ most times they don’t know anything about it, just saying it, playing with words they don’t really know. so when it’s said by someone who doesn’t really know the true meaning of the word, they are just describing someone with a drug problem. it makes the people they are talking about sound not a nice person, people they don’t want to be around when, in fact, they are some of the kindest caring and loving people you will meet. when i hear the j word i feel discriminated against, judged, put down, looked at badly, the lowest of the low, will do anything, stick dirty needles, use dirty water, live in shit, not a good person. when in fact they are a person who just prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 59 3(1) had things go wrong. (student 1; male, 55, polemic writing exercise, 2019) the student went on to give his work to the tutor who resultantly learned first-hand how a casual reference, a thoughtless word, had caused pain. the process of creative interrogation allowed the student to negotiate ‘discomforts and disruptions’ (armstrong and ludlow, 2017), whilst at the same time alleviating connotations of blame and feelings of alienation between students and tutors. creative interrogation turned a potentially hurtful and hostile situation into a learning opportunity for all involved. jackson (2013) suggests how pedagogies that engage learners with the unfamiliar, perplexing, complex and unpredictable; that encourage them to take risks and not be penalised if they do not succeed, and involve them in challenges; that demand new understanding, are more likely to require them to use their creativity. this is also situated in comparison to activities that require the replication and regurgitation of knowledge that is already known. taught sessions on the creative response programme encourage students to engage with the writing of georges perec, james joyce and the diary entries of virginia woolf to name just a few. the message here is that students participating in learning together are capable of reading, understanding and being inspired by ‘difficult’ and potentially complex writers. in being open, engaging with our own confusion and lack of understanding, and indeed embracing vulnerability, the pedagogic model reveals that comprehension is not always an immediate response. grappling with such material also shows that not understanding, and having to think about, discuss and research a text, can also become a welcome and enjoyable part of the learning journey. this builds confidence in the ability to not simply retell, but to expressively encounter a cultural source and to artistically create its subjective meaning. the week following the virginia woolf session a student brought up the following diary entry: ‘i picked up that hand-out. that bit about the moths was boss. she lost faith she didn’t think she could write. i read it out to my missus. i left school at thirteen and i’m reading virginia woolf to the missus!’ (student 3; male, 40; reflective journal excerpt, 2020) providing opportunities for students to enhance their academic identities, through the accumulation of creative capital, can also be found in the ‘photography and writing: the decisive moment’ session, which encourages students to imaginatively explore the experience of another person through the photography of henri cartier-bresson (see picture below entitled ‘boston commons, 1947’). the students are encouraged to write from the point of view of one of the people in the photograph. he looks worried. has he done something? or has something happened. been laid off? took the takings or knows that someone has. he found a spot and slumped down to think. go over what he can do. it’s a hard choice for him, either way. he can lose a friend, or his job, or his family. he is a respectable man. everyone around him is relaxed, chilled, laying down and he is sitting, head down, hands locked together, tense. he’s out of place in his suit, and tie and shiny shoes, thinking what do i do…? (student 1; male, 55; ekphrastic writing excerpt, 2019). within the host institution, learning together manages to utilise the notion of creative interrogation in both a pedagogical and pastoral sense: particularly when feelings of (un)belonging and incongruity emerge amongst students with lived experience of the criminal justice system. during a discussion about (un)belonging, one student claimed ‘it was nearly over before i began’ (student 4; female, 60; reflective writing excerpt, 2019). after praising it as a beautifully constructed line of writing, it was interrogated further. what do you mean? what made you feel this way? the prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 60 3(1) subsequent piece of creative writing explained how, upon presenting herself at the university reception, and not being able to find out where the session was due to take place, she almost left – dropping out of the programme before she had even enrolled. do i belong in university or don’t i? finding my feet was a nice experience. logging into the computer with your new log in material was enjoyable. finding my way through the building not such a good experience and asking at reception where a class might be taken only one not so good experience. the receptionist couldn’t help me. she wanted to know the letters before the numbers to get past go. my fault, i suppose, for not writing the room number down and looking in my module. but i was here – what more did you want? yes, i do belong. no i don’t. mixed feelings about the whole thing. am i a student or am i just going through the motions? (student 4; female, 60; reflective writing excerpt, 2019). the aforementioned discussion provides us with an example of how the creative response programme provides a safe space, within the educational interface,5 for students to talk and write about their feelings. in addition, the creative pedagogy underpinning the learning together programme allows the educators to meaningfully engage with longstanding (but typically overlooked) issues surrounding identity and (un)belonging amongst and between students with lived experience of the criminal justice system. rather than re-inventing the status quo and facilitating the politically motivated rhetoric of the widening participation agenda, our creative pedagogy provides an opportunity for educators and students alike to interrogate taken-for-granted assumptions about what it means to be a student as part of the university environment, and the associated experiences of learning and knowledge production. 5 kahu and nelson (2017) suggest that a student’s sense of belonging is developed and nurtured within the educational interface; a dynamic space that is different for each student involved in higher education (edwards and mcmillian, 2015). kahu et al., (2013) suggest that the educational interface is a 5. unlocking creativity through poetry as part of the creative pedagogy, poetry sessions focus on specific moments. as a linguistic form poetry uses concision (language, line, image) to expand (understanding, connection) – a ‘magic trick’ that students appreciate. furthermore, poems and the writing of poetry generally avoid right or wrong answers. using published poems as templates also provides students with an opportunity to think about and write their own poems; thus providing a creative and liberating route into self-expression, made all the more powerful as fewer words are required to capture and convey an experience: came in to it bleak sat back counted the room many different faces different lives all coming through nervous not knowing i’m sure others felt the same debates learning together, life’s real game criminology, criminologists opinions we all have it’s about getting to the point opening our minds, to figure it out (student 3; male, 40, poem, 2019) this poem was written during an induction session by a student with experience of the criminal justice system. the poem captures the anxiety, nervousness and hope felt by the student during the session. such feelings, experiences and thoughts typically would be overlooked and subsequently go unnoticed. capturing this emotional response provides insight of an individual’s very first interaction with higher education. hirshfield (1997) notes that poetry has the capacity to clarify and magnify existence. it is the ‘emotional microchip’ that serves as a compact repository for variable state, influenced by a wide variety of student and institutional factors combined with the socio-political context within which the educational interface is situated. prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 61 3(1) emotionally charged experiences (furman, 2007:01). the creative pedagogy which underpins learning together illustrates how the use of poems as models and templates helps bring focus to personal, pedagogical, and social experiences in a way that is manageable and containable for students: they feel safe. life can be so unfair but we wake up in the morning, dreading what to wear we have to keep strong and pray that our loved ones are here to stay life can be so cruel and aggressive that is why i am writing this message there are more good than bad people out there i swear learning together can only be positive, so let’s not be negative my heart goes out to all family and friends who ask the question why me what have we done to deserve this? when all we want is love and peace so stand tall, chest out, shoulders back and believe in hope, that one day we can all reunite with our lost and loved ones life can be so unfair (student 5; male, 53; poem, 2019). a student with experience of the criminal justice system, wrote the above poem after a session that discussed the london bridge terror attack in december 2019. this was a significant and deeply personal contribution from this student. although in attendance every week, he did not verbally contribute to classroom discussions. after being told that poetry did not have to rhyme, he wanted to write and contribute to the discussion in a way that was meaningful to him. poetry, and other forms of creative outputs, engage with, and contribute to discussions about ‘who’ produces knowledge, and so, are able to provoke the reader. according to segalo (2018), poetry offers an imaginative, metaphoric and creative take on how we make meaning about life. drawing upon the poem otherwise, written in 2005 by jane kenyon, students were able to describe a day in their present life which implicitly contrasted with a day in their past life. otherwise i get up out of a nice clean bed, put my bare feet on the carpet it could have been otherwise. i eat breakfast, have a shower, dress in clean clothes. could have been otherwise. i go out my new front door, put on headphones, listen to music. could have been otherwise. got my head up. could have been otherwise. wait for the bus to come with people doing everyday things. put my bus pass on the machine. could have been otherwise. i’m off to have a good day. if i’d not come to liverpool this all would be otherwise (student 1; male, 55; poem 2018) creative pedagogy can assist us in our quest to look beyond and move away from the urge to use a single lens when making sense of lived experience (segalo, 2018). because poetry honours the subjective experience of the individual, it is presented in a manner that is metaphorically generalisable (stein, 2004, cited in furman, 2007). a poem that expresses an author’s emotional truth can elicit a powerful empathic reaction in its reader (furman, 2007). the relationship between the poem and the experience of the reader can therefore be understood through the concept of multivoicedness: meaning resides neither in the speaker or the receiver but is created through the interactions between the two (bakhtin, 1982 cited in furman, 2007). the interactions that take place, as a result of the creative pedagogy and the associated curricula underpinning learning together, provide a way through which the multi-voicedness amongst and between students involved in the programme, can be understood and communicated. prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 62 3(1) i come from i come from the 60s and 70s, from 5 foot and rizla from a council estate, crime and a tough time i come from morals, don’t talk back, mind your ps & qs from speak when spoken to, don’t hit women, say hello and open the door for a lady. i come from green flash trainers, bell-bottoms and motown music black & white telly, the test card era. i come from put some money in the meter, from when you spoke to your neighbor (student 6; male, 56; poem, 2020) furthermore, the creative pedagogy involved in the design and delivery of learning together, presents an opportunity for staff and students alike to engage in an organic process of creative disruption. based within a criminal justice module, the creative response programme is designed to disrupt disciplinary norms and values. students are encouraged to read widely across disciplinary boundaries; the classroom architecture is also physically disrupted as the tables and chairs are moved and the traditional order disregarded. teaching activities are participatory, designed to disrupt the ‘teacher-learner’ power dynamic and evoke feelings of empowerment and ownership of the learning environment. creative teaching methods are used to disrupt and reframe any historically negative associations with education and the classroom. students may be asked to lay on the floor so that a fellow student can weigh their head; the students are then encouraged to conclude that their heads are heavy, because they are ‘full of stories’. this activity typically generates much debate and discussion. a previous cohort emphatically recommended that all new groups engage with this activity, as it facilitates the powerful realisation that every member of the group has a unique voice. we each have an individual way of inhabiting and negotiating the world as we approach it from the prism of our own unique experiences. translated through the medium of creative pedagogy, each individual viewpoint and experience of the world can be emphasised, voiced and therefore made valuable. 6. conclusion although the exact amount of students with criminal convictions is unknown, unlock (2018) have found approximately 1% of university applicants tick the criminal convictions box on their application form. although this is low when compared with the eleven million people in england and wales who have a criminal conviction (unlock, 2018), conservative estimations illustrate how the higher education sector fails to capture, and subsequently engage with the stories and experiences of this demographic of the student body. jackson (2013) therefore suggests that if the moral purpose of higher education is to enable individuals to prepare themselves for the complexities and challenges of their future life, then enabling learners to develop their creative potential must be an important part of this purpose. the boundary-crossing nature of the creative pedagogy, alongside the creative interrogations that take place during learning together allows students to re-evaluate their worth as well as the worth of their experiences as valuable learning resources. during a creative response session, one student recounted a story of being sent to ‘the moey’ (a mobile shop) ‘with a quid to buy woodbines for my dad (…) there’d be half a pence change. what can i get for half a pence? i asked the shop-keeper. he took a cola bottle sweet from a jar, bit it in half and passed the remains to me.’ the critical consciousness emerged when the student suddenly stopped and said ‘how little did he think of me, to give me only half a sweet? he must’ve despised me. how little did i think of myself to accept that was okay – to take half a sweet dripping with his spit.’ (student 7; male, 38; autobiographical writing excerpt, 2019). creative pedagogy provides opportunities for students to describe and engage with resituated and transformed notions of themselves. they are able to do that not in the language of academia but in their own words. lived experience is celebrated in creative ways to enhance the sense of belonging and togetherness amongst and between students. the presence of prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 63 3(1) creative disruption provides an opportunity for staff and students alike to challenge the status quo (albeit on a micro level) about ‘who’ belongs at university and ‘what’ the university experience should be. the process of pedagogical borrowing, creative interrogation and creative disruption provides a way in which the authors can creatively and meaningfully engage with the university experience of non-traditional students. the creative pedagogy and its interrogative curricula encourages students to build their creative capital by offering a space where being open and, indeed, vulnerable is celebrated; where participants come to realise that their lives contain a collection of stories and not the solely the story of being labelled as ‘school dropout’, ‘ex-offender’, ‘being on probation,’ ‘having been to prison’ and/or ‘in recovery’. adichie (2009, p. 4) illustrates that the single or dominant label story creates stereotypes. the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. in sharing and writing stories, and in utilising new structures and forms through which to present the stories (memoir, fiction, poems), we witness an increase in self-esteem and confidence, and a greater sense of how future stories can be self-narrated. creative response sessions provide an important and valuable space for students; emotional responses to formal teaching sessions can be explored and interrogated, and negative (or self-sabotaging) reactions challenged. this has implications not only for students with experience of the criminal justice system, but for anyone who does not neatly fit the typical higher education ‘student stereotype’, and who might feel that their lived experience is not reflected in the university environment or the curriculum. although not formally ‘therapeutic writing’ the effect of personal, expressive writing is clear: students are keen to read out their homework whilst classmates always listen intently and comment intelligently. these shared moments provide acknowledgement and recognition of each other’s fragility, tenacity and growing confidence. creative opportunities have an intrinsic and tangible value (jarvis, 2012), yet the notion of ‘creativity’ and what it can offer in terms of developing individual and institutional creative capital is largely missing from discussions about the role and function of higher education. this raises significant questions about the subsequent outputs that emerge as a result of these creative endeavours; in what ways can they be framed, and formally acknowledged as having value as part of the higher education framework, as well as society more broadly. although the findings that are presented here are exploratory, they go some way to opening up a conversation about the role of creativity and, indeed, creative pedagogies in higher education. as the findings suggest, such approaches can better mobilise, and subsequently represent the student voice, so that a more meaningful and accurate representation of the university experience can be captured and integrated into institutional policy and practice. with this in mind, the authors intend to develop the application of creative writing as both a methodology and creative pedagogy in an attempt to better understand and represent the ‘student experience’ amongst and between higher education students beyond learning together. prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 64 3(1) 7. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. acknowledgements we would like to thank all staff and students who have been involved in learning together at liverpool john moores university since it was first developed in 2016. 9. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 10. to cite this article: gosling, h; burke, l; & maclennan, s. (2020). developing a creative pedagogy to understand the university experience of non-traditional students. prism, 3(1), 53-67 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301204 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism gosling, burke & maclennan (2020) prism 65 3(1) 11. references adichie, c. 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http://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ http://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 40 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 inner and outer weather: creative practice as contemplative ecological inquiry zuzana vasko faculty of education, simon fraser university, british columbia, canada (zvasko@sfu.ca) received: 09/02/2020 accepted for publication: 17/06/2020 published: 11/08/2020 abstract ecological crises exist not only in the external environment; they have their source within us — in the mind and in personal and cultural values (bai, 2012; stoknes, 2018). arts-based and contemplative inquiry are helpful in opening the self and the senses to the natural world and its elemental dynamics of weather. creative contemplative practice also creates room for inner exploration about how we relate to other species and to the larger cosmos. this article describes a drawing project that was undertaken in an endeavour to build these connections, both within and without. through the process of walking and making drawings of the bark of trees in a local ecosystem, attention was given also to the dynamics of weather and how we might be more conscious of its role in everyday life, with the belief that such caring attentiveness is necessary in a time of critical climate change. from a perspective that values interconnectivity, this exploration puts forth that the elements of air and water are within us too, and that our inner weather – our shifting psycho spiritual states – is affected by earth’s dynamics, just as, more importantly, and our more long-term values and psychospiritual perspectives have significant effects on ecological health. keywords: arts-based education; ecology & education; contemplative practice; walking; environmental ethics; sensory & aesthetic attentiveness; weather & climate 1. introduction per espen stoknes (2018) has said that ‘our current environmental crises aren’t just out there. they’re equally a crisis of mind, emotion, imagination’ (stoknes, 2018, p. 14). indeed, if we are to affect long term and meaningful change, it seems necessary to attend carefully to what is within — to that which has brought about the production-oriented culture — and consider our values, desires and our sense of who we are in the world (bai, 2012). this paper considers ecological ways of being that emphasise the relational and the interdependent: the co-existence and resonance with different life forms and elements in the cosmos, with a specific consideration of our relation to weather. through the frameworks of arts-based ecological learning and a personal contemplative art practice, the article describes a project of walking and drawing that considers how the weather in our local ecosystems might play a more consciously valued role in our everyday lives. in my area of arts-based ecological education i have often encountered experiences where — both in my https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:zvasko@sfu.ca prism vasko (2020) prism 41 3(1) own practice and that of my students — the practice of aesthetic contemplation, of drawing or writing in response to the natural world, brings about moments of intimate connection and understanding of the value of our co-existence with other life forms. here, a regular practice of drawing done on repeated visits to local natural areas, aims to cultivate closeness with interconnected natural systems, and considers how an increased awareness of these ecologies and their particular dynamics — atmospheric and otherwise — might contribute also to a more expanded and inclusive sense of self. the inquiry occurs within the frameworks of expressive arts practice, contemplative inquiry and deep ecology. expressive arts practice, which assumes that capacities for creativity and aesthetic responsiveness dwell within us all, allows for personal discoveries about the self, and about our relations with the world around us. while this project is done in that framework, many forms of creative practice have the potential to engender such discoveries provided the work is process-oriented, rather than being done primarily for the results produced. my exploration is with the natural ecologies close to my home outside the vancouver area, and its connection to weather seeks to bring the larger concerns around climate closer to home, to the neighbourhoods in which we dwell. at a time when climate is changing evermore rapidly, there seems to be a need for increased consciousness at the local and personal, everyday level. in my experience, this consciousness is deeper and more affecting when gained through personal embodied and sensuous experience. the dynamics of nature, including the common everyday phenomenon of weather, are in need of our genuine everyday curiosity and humble, caring observation. if our sensitivity and receptiveness to the dynamics of local ecosystems is cultivated and expanded, this contributes also to a richer expansion of who we are as humans (bringhurst, 2008; wilson, 1984). 2. background to the project i have had a long-standing practice of connecting with wilderness areas near my home through art — primarily through drawing but also through photography, narrative and poetry. working with stephen j. gould’s (1991) observation that we are only likely to actively protect what we know and love (as cited in orr, [2004], p. 43), this practice has mostly been about building intimacy with the land and with local wilderness areas. i live close to a series of wooded hills in the fraser valley in british columbia, an area characterised by many waterways, established forests and backgrounded by the golden ears mountain range. while i often experience anxiety over areas that are threatened by development, i feel immensely fortunate to have areas of relatively pristine wilderness close by, as well as neighbourhoods well sheltered by a rich variety of trees. i embarked upon a project that was partly inspired by the work of a student i had some years ago. a graduate student in arts education, she completed a series of drawings on the part of the trans canada trail that traverses our university campus. she had set out to do a drawing each day and to write about her process. the journalistic and daily quality of this project resonated and felt familiar to me: in previous years, i too, had worked on a long-term journalistic series of small abstract drawings as well as one of contour drawings. there was also the particular quality of her images: the process of contour drawing focuses on attending, in a very sincere and concentrated way, to the contours of the subject being drawn. the emphasis is on the process of seeing rather than on the finished image, and as such, has the very specific mark of the author’s hand. i have also since had the journey of several series of forest drawings — responses to places that offer me deep spiritual nourishment near my home — a practice that became very much a part of my life when i later sought out ways to come to intimately know more a wilderness area through drawing. many years after looking through her project, what i recall most particularly are her last lines. she explained that while she had set out to draw along the trail every day, this had not materialised quite as planned. she had, nonetheless, accumulated a lovely collection of drawings, and expressed that it was fine that she had not stuck with her original intent, stating the need to prism vasko (2020) prism 42 3(1) work in accordance with “inner and outer weather.”1 for me, this registered as a tender acknowledgement that our days and practices are guided by both of these: we have weather within us — shifting and often subtle dynamics in the form of states of mind, emotional inclinations, values and callings of the spirit — that alters and shifts, and deserves to be heeded even as it sometimes interrupt our plans and commitments to the external world. and outer weather, much more commensurable in an observed way, in turn has the capacity to transform how we feel on a given day, thus guiding the very quality of our individual actions much more than any business-as-usual approach would like to admit. the acknowledgement that these inner and outer forces intertwine, and the effects of weather, seasons and earth cycles are pedagogically meaningful, as i will later explain. the practice of turning inward and listening to what is unfolding within is often also a process of becoming more sympathetic and attuned to what is unfolding outside us. these workings can be subtle and synchronous. in art practice, our senses come alive and we are opened up to the things we observe around us. we notice more fully what there is to be noticed in the world around us (greene, 1995), which is particularly significant in a time where many eyes are occupied by screens. focusing on drawing the trunks of trees allows me to see them in ways i otherwise would not, or might take time to. i become aware of how, while at first glance they may all look similar, not only do different species have vastly different types of bark, even those of the same species have much that is unique about them. this noticing and this act of perception opens up something in me that brings me closer to the trees themselves and to what they may experience. it is not merely a mental process, for this new knowing resides in parts of me that cannot easily be placed and are certainly not limited to one place. because senses are involved, because emotions and spirit come into play when i interpret the lines the tree expresses through its physical being, and because my hand is following these lines and my feet are held by the same ground in which the tree is rooted, this is a kind of knowing that involves 1 i would like to credit sharon wherland for the inspiration and for this lovely term. my whole being. there is something within, an intuitive understanding not easily nameable, that comes to understand on an embodied and spiritual level that i am a very small part of a larger interconnected realm. holistic experience is integral to contemplative practice, as is the sense of being connected to something much greater than oneself. in contemplative educational contexts where spiritual wisdom traditions are valued, ethical considerations — especially those of how we relate to others and other beings — become particularly relevant (purser & loy, 2013). inspired in part by neil evernden’s incisive observation that ‘the environment is us’ (1993), contemplative education scholar heesoon bai (2012) points to the great need of our time to look inward, to the forces that have shaped who we are and indeed into the soul if we are to have any real hope of meaningful transformation in our ways of being in relation to the earth. her claim is that healing needs to occur within if we are to have hope to heal the effects of our actions on the planet. the time at which i write this is one of remarkable shift in perspective brought about by the climate change movement: young people the world over have taken to the streets in protest of governments and policy makers who are too idle in the face of the scientific findings that scream for us to wake up. naomi klein (2019) notes the many fires occurring simultaneously: literal fires that scorch forest and grassland across the globe, political fires fed by leaders who look the other way in order to maintain the economic status quo, as well as the fires of youth protest, which offer a great deal of moral energy. conversations and alarm over the findings of the dire 2018 ipcc (intergovernmental panel on climate change) report raised the level of din to overwhelming levels, and i have been left to wonder one particular question: why is it that the climate is seen by many as a kind of other? even as an enemy? it is true that we feel a sense of genuine threat, not only to the comfortably convenient ways to which we are so accustomed, but to our very being and existence. yet perhaps rather than looking primarily outward at what can be managed in prism vasko (2020) prism 43 3(1) the environment ‘out there,’ we might also consider what is within.2 most particularly, i feel it important to explore a perspective which views climate and everyday weather as an integral and proximate part of our daily lives; rather than being ‘othered’, the weather might be considered a kind of subtle and immediate partner. 3. climate, psyche, interconnection for some time, i have been considering how the structure of our daily lives — determined largely by our economic systems and institutions — pays little consideration to how we, as human creatures, are deeply affected by the seasons and the weather. i was brought more fully to this awareness by the writing of indigenous education scholar eber hampton (1995) who noted how conventional western education pays almost no head to the meanings and relationships of the rhythm and cycle of the seasons. he advocates instead an educational approach that honours the primeval pull the turning of the earth has upon us. i, for one, know i am a different person on a damp january morning, which on the pacific coast of canada is often socked in by a thick fog or by relentless rain deposited from cloud cover that can make the world feel enveloped in grey, than on a glowing june evening when my body and spirit are suffused with the energy of warmth and glow of the burgeoning summer. the effects of the times of day, the season, the quality and amount of light, the temperature: their influence on us is subtle and significant, yet is often put aside and overlooked in favour of homogenously standardized clock time that runs our schools and workplaces, dictated by industrial systems. hampton and other north american indigenous educators (e.g. cajete, 1994) recognize the integral connection of humans to their geographic place and to the cycles of the earth, and that true ecological education cannot be separated from that. 2 a few days after i wrote these lines i came across a headline in a respected and purportedly progressive political magazine, stating ‘we need a massive climate war effort – now.’ the article was illustrated with war imagery reminiscent of ww2 propaganda posters, with science and technology being the weapons. it was also peppered with captions stating that what is needed is the kind of spending it takes to win wars, claiming that the problem can be solved ‘if this is an approach that does not consider us distinct from weather and climate but allows them to be integral to our lives: to the things we do, how we fill our days, and the outlook we assume at any given time. in other words, they are part of who we are as earthdwelling beings. there is the orientation that our practices and what we teach and live by are infused and often even guided by the seasons and weather and by the effects of light as determined by the seasonal position of the earth, as well as by the unique climatic particularities of the region where we dwell. the conscious and attentive noticing i spoke of earlier can apply to weather, especially in urban areas where sky and weather dynamics may be among the only easily accessible elements of nature. while industrial growth societies are now waking to the truth that climate is in dire need of our respect and humble observation, those whose ways of life have had a stronger connection with the land have been humbly observing and respecting — and most notably, affected — all along. in a talk that calls us to consider climate and its attendant concerns not as distant and abstract but present and immediate in our lives, stoknes (2017) invites us to see the climate as ‘the living air’ around us — and indeed within us, for we take it into our lungs. this living air is, literally, the breath of our lives. like us, it is resilient, but sensitive to mistreatment, especially over the long term. it is also something we share and have in common with other living beings, and indeed with all beings who have inhabited the earth before us as well as those who are yet unborn. i find this metaphor very rich not only for its life-giving character but also because it inextricably connects us to other species who experience the air as we do. it also dismantles the hierarchy: we cannot claim to need the air more than do our fellow inhabitants and earth-kin (haraway, 2016). we pay for it’ (drum, 2020). while i appreciate such a shift in economic focus is important, i was troubled by the war metaphors and the reductive tone. and perhaps most particularly, by the view that climate (and thus the subtler workings of nature) needs to be triumphed over by humans; for it is this view that got us to the position where we now find ourselves. prism vasko (2020) prism 44 3(1) we might imagine a similar interconnection with water: the precipitation and humidity we often think of in meteorological terms are also, as david abram says, ‘the local waters flowing through us’ (2010, p. 1). inspired in part by dwelling with peoples in indonesia whose lives and livelihood are closely connected with the land, abram calls for modes of mind and communication that portray our interbeing with the earth rather than severing us from her. there is also the consideration of larger interconnectivity. corrine glesne (2018) describes her interaction with an indigenous teacher in mexico who explained that in their culture they don’t really talk about ‘the environment’, but talk instead of harmony — of being allied with animals and with the spirits of nature. her reflection on the conversation brought to light the categorical terms with which western thinking separates people, animals, and environment. buddhist traditions, somewhat similarly, look toward habits of mind that enact interdependence and interpenetration rather than individuality, atomism and the mechanization of life (bai, 2019). speaking from a background of buddhist teachings on interconnectivity, bai cautions against ‘a self that has lost its intrinsic oneness with a sentient planet and all her creatures as well as with the cosmos’ (bai, 2019, located at 13m:42s). we can also consider meanings around air and water that are more familiar to western thought: to be inspired literally means to be filled with breath; metaphors of drinking from the cup of life and being cleansed refer to the element of water flowing into and over us. for me, the representation of taking the air and water into ourselves points also to the substance of who we are, inside. more than the physiological transaction of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, this is about receiving and taking into ourselves what is around us: living that interpenetration and interdependence in a psycho-spiritual sense as well as a physical one. further, being aware that what we emit — not only in the physical or gaseous sense (whether with our bodies, or our vehicles and industries) but also in terms of our worldview — has intricate and powerful effects. it implicates our modes of being: how we are in relation with ourselves, each other and the larger web of life. stoknes’ (2017) representation of the living air removes the excuse that we have no agency as with something distant over which we have no effect, to continue living as if we have no work to do on this matter. yet he goes further, inviting us also to consider how our identity — who we are as individuals and as a culture — plays a stronger role than does our intelligence and the scientific knowledge we accumulate. for the values that shape our identity, whether personal or cultural, determine our practices. he sums it up incisively: ‘the values eat the facts, and identity trumps truth any day’ (stoknes, 2017, located at 6m:40s). while stoknes examines the larger psychological considerations and practical possibilities for a way forward, for me, the notion of weather dynamics within and moving through us comes closer to the more personal and soulful exploration i am engaged in here. in a forward titled a psyche the size of the earth, james hillman (1995) opens with what he considers the core issue of all psychology: ‘where is the ‘me’? where does the ‘me’ begin? where does the ‘me’ stop? where does the ‘other’ begin?’ (xvii). he calls for habits of mind, and psychological practices, that consider humans as part of — and thus inevitably affected by — the larger world of nature. he urges us to consider that our mental states are not insular: that in treating the existential ills, the psychological and spiritual health of any individual, the wellness of the larger realm of nature needs to be considered: an individual’s harmony with his or her ‘own deep self’ requires not merely a journey to the interior but a harmonisation with the environmental world. the deepest self cannot be confined to ‘in here’ because we can’t be sure it is not also or even entirely ‘out there’! […] the most profoundly collective and unconscious self is the natural material world (hillman, 1995, p. xix). i believe this interconnection of personal psyche with the larger natural and elemental cosmos is key to a prism vasko (2020) prism 45 3(1) meaningful way forward in these ecologically precarious times. 4. a journalistic practice of tree drawings when i first started this project, it was the height of summer. the province of british columbia, where i live, is heavily forested and over the previous two summers many of these forests had been devastated by wildfires. even those of us who were not in danger areas saw many trees in our neighbourhoods die from the drought of the previous hot seasons. when enveloped in the thick smoke that carried from far across the province, these skeleton trees were a picture of bleak eeriness in many areas close to home. at the onset of the summer of 2019 we were anticipating with much chagrin that this might be the new normal; there were forecasts of such possibilities. it was with much relief, then, that we experienced a milder and even moister season than the previous two. yet as klein (2019) describes, there were other, metaphoric, fires taking place: i was potently aware of the burning activism sparked by youth across our country and many others. for the better part of a decade, i have had a practice of drawing in a local forest i visit often. it is unfortunately not protected from development, yet it offers me continual and deep spiritual nourishment. for this project, i started out with a desire to draw things up close, to experience an intimacy that reflects upon what i might share with these species which are, like me, dependent on the earth’s elements. after drawing many plants on the forest floor and being unsatisfied with the result, i became fascinated with the patterns of bark, noticing closely the skin of these trees for which i have much fondness. the drawings are quite abstract, depicting in black felt pen the detailed contours of the bark surface, the particularity and uniqueness of each tree i’ve considered. with my focus on the connection between inner and outer, the skin of trees seemed apt: of all our organs, the skin is perhaps the one of which we are most aware: it both contains our bodies and touches the outer world — the temperature and the climate. the relative abstractness of the drawings speaks to our relatively limited understanding of the complexity of ecological illness, and indeed of the climate crises itself. while we are becoming wiser on the dynamics and the complex multiple systems that are our ecologies and climate and of which we are part, to many, the phenomenon remains frustratingly abstract. the abstractness also touches upon the depths of the origins of our lack of connection with the natural world, as well as our elemental, and inextricable, connections with it. to me, the drawings are a form of contemplative practice in that the main focus is on the experience and the process of drawing; it is about being present with what i’m looking at — it is about sincere seeing. the experience of presence and of being there with this other being is of greater value than the product of the drawing itself, or any sense of self-accomplishment that may result. of course, it is wonderful when certain drawings take on a special life of their own, yet in my experience this resonance comes about when the presence and the careful seeing are genuine. there are times when i am distracted, when the mental to-do lists and preoccupations — and the constant conceptual language common to academics — have a hold on my mind, and the experience, like the finished drawing itself, can be perfunctory and flat. heesoon bai (2015) prism vasko (2020) prism 46 3(1) describes strong connections between meditation experience and more vivid seeing, suggesting that a contemplative state of mind helps us to perceive and appreciate the life within the world. in my own experience, and being a relatively new student in meditation practices, i am still coming to understand this connection myself. what i have found repeatedly, however, is that the spatial and holistic mode of mind i sink into when i walk in the woods and especially when i begin to draw, helps bring about a different sense of things for me — with the senses coming alive, there is an enhanced feeling of the intricate interconnectedness of all forms of life, and my connection to them. the process of doing these drawings is an exploration of relationality and of my own place in the sphere of ecological damage and healing. the expressive arts are generally considered therapeutic and while i hesitate to call this therapy per se, there is something deeply curative about being immersed in this pictorial dialogue with other beings with whom i share an ecology. in my study of the patterns and contours of bark, i was struck by the distinctiveness between tree species. cedar is common on the west coast and its stripy bark is very characteristic; the bark of fir is blockier in pattern, like a series of shapes that fit together in compact puzzle pieces. the bark surface of maple is much subtler. the age of the tree makes a difference too — older ones are much more fissured and craggy. and the various sides of a tree make a difference too: moss grows on the north side, and how many kinds of mosses there are. lichen seems generally to prefer northern sides but not always: sometimes it seems to grow all around the trunk. on regular walks outside one experiences the weather on one’s own skin, how it shifts and changes, as well as and the effects it has: i notice that hyacinths prism vasko (2020) prism 47 3(1) and daffodils are sprouting in people’s yards, even though it is only january. the record rainfall that is reported this month is not only news, but it is also my own sensorial lived experience. once at home, i wrote across the ink drawings in pencil. in one direction, i wrote about what i was experiencing that day inwardly, my concerns and preoccupations, the things of life that were lifting me or that i was carrying. i wrote this in a cursive script, a crafted form of writing that i find to be quite personal in that the mark of the hand is so evident.3 in the other, perpendicular, direction, i wrote about the outer world, with a focus on the weather and on general climate concerns both near and far. with all the precipitation we commonly experience here in the winter, my thoughts have gone often to the wildfires in australia, and their devastating effects on life of all kinds — both human and wild. these observations of 3 the learning of cursive writing was removed from our school curricula some years ago, on the argument that it is not useful in the digital age. this may have truth to it, though i wish instrumental thinking that considers ‘usefulness’ in relation the outside realm were printed, a method of writing that is somehow more standardized and ‘rational’, with its angular and upright forms. the two written texts cross over each other, creating an interweaving of inner and outer. the content of the text is not really meant to be decipherable — it is not literal meaning i am after so much as the pattern created by the writing and the idea that layered and subtle meanings are there, even if somewhat enigmatically expressed. in the parts of the writing that are about the weather, i wondered whether to describe the weather in numbers, to look up the weather report on temperature and so on. for the most part, i chose instead to describe the weather as my own intimate experience of it, rather than as a publicly reported prediction, gained from a media source. to the technocratic economy would not so readily rule out a craftful, handmade form of communication and expression, and one that connects us to the past, perhaps not unlike history lessons do. prism vasko (2020) prism 48 3(1) the land on which i live and do this work, while settled over the last two centuries mostly by caucasians through colonial regimes, is traditionally the land of the kwantlen, katzie and sto:lo indigenous people who have lived in the northern fraser valley for many generations. the land was not ceded by them and thus it is customary, at the opening of public gatherings and in correspondence, to acknowledge the peoples from whom the land was taken. i feel it right to make that acknowledgement here. this drawing project was done in two main areas, in an established hillside forest and in a neighbourhood park that has a mixture of native and planted trees surrounding a creek. 5. noticing the weather, being present in the forest today, the air is damp after many days of rain; i have come out during a break in the clouds, yet the water still drips on me from the trees above. my drawing is of a cedar, its characteristic stripy bark. it is punctuated here and there with bits of moss that glow green, lit up inside and out from all the moisture. beyond the giant cedar, a thick fog envelops the columns of the tree trunks beyond, standing stark and black against the smoky pewter mist. ____ it is unseasonably warm today; i remove my coat so that i can draw more comfortably. i seem to be drawn to a cedar again, this one with its stripes flowing diagonally like a muted, monochromatic barber pole. the process of drawing is meditative. it allows the preoccupations of my current life to simply sit for a moment without my getting caught up in them: my teenage son’s mental health challenges, family misunderstandings, the unhelpful tendencies we carry from childhood. i am in the park adjacent to the elementary school and a teacher has brought her young students out; their voices echo in the background, brought to me on air that is too warm for this time of year to promise enough snowpack for what may later be another parched summer. what have i learned from this time of consciously noticing the weather, of becoming more aware of how atmospheric conditions touch upon — and intertwine with — those of my own state of mind? like the ambience of a room, the weather is often an intangible that has substantial effects. noticing the weather more consciously on a daily basis allows me to be more present with the world. 6. pedagogical parallels bai (2019) speaks of the value of cultivating a contemplative practice, both for one’s own personal well-being as well as for one’s integrity as a teacher. referring to palmer’s maxim that ‘we teach who we are’, she speaks of the value of being aware of being self-reflective so that we do not pass our unconscious frustrations and pain onto our students. self-awareness and self-cultivation, according to bai, are the most important practices of being a teacher. when asked how one maintains a contemplative practice in a busy life, her response is to be attentive, to pay attention to one’s own experience, to be able to check-in with oneself about the quality of their consciousness: ‘however busy i am, is the world speaking to me?’ (16m:02s). this is a large part of why i take these walks, and do these drawings — so that i can be more consciously prism vasko (2020) prism 49 3(1) open to what the world is saying to me. while i am affected by subtle things, and have a tendency toward those qualities of life that are immeasurable by any statistic, with this mindful choice to engage with the atmosphere i have allowed myself to be sensitive to the world around me, to take it in and let it alter me. in a sense i am more awake with the world. recalling greene’s (2001) reminder of john dewey’s observation that the opposite of aesthetic is unaesthetic, i feel this aesthetic engagement with my surroundings is a practice of wide-awakeness to what the dynamics of my local nature and climate are telling me. turning the value of contemplative practice toward the practice of teaching, there are significant parallels to be drawn here. when we search memories for the teachers in our lives who made a difference, it’s likely we focus on those with whom we felt a connection. perhaps they had about them a presence that was inviting of relationship, not only with the content matter of their teaching, but with the students: they took time to value them as human beings. the sensitivity and awakeness i mention above — the act of being present and of noticing, of slowing down enough to be in the moment with others — is relational. it can be done mindfully, with intention. when one is deeply present and sincere in the creative process of seeing and then drawing, the drawing becomes richer. similarly, when a teacher slows down to be present with their students, learning tends to go deeper and encompasses something beyond what may be on the next assignment. returning to bai’s observation that to be mindful is to be open to what the world is saying to us, so, too, can we become mindful teachers by cultivating an open attentiveness with students, and being receptive to their humanity. equally significantly, awareness of our own inner workings — the shifting dynamics within and the tendencies we harbour — enables us better to know ‘who we are’, to use palmer’s maxim, and thus to teach more consciously. in my experience, as well as that of many colleagues i have known, creative engagement enriches life and one’s relationship with the world; this richness also nourishes our teaching practice. 7. nature, the self, & a creative state of mind i open the back door on a january morning when it is still dark outside. the rain is coming down plentifully, making its sound on everything — the leaves of the laurel bush, the puddles on the small patio and rushing down the spouts. the air comes toward my body with a freshness that only such rain and the early morning could create, welcoming me to the day. something about the way this rain is everywhere in all the space outside and falling on everything makes me feel joined to it all. i am reminded of a passage from thomas merton i once read about his delight in listening to the rain fall on the roof of his cabin hermitage, offering that as long as it rains, he will keep listening to its beautiful sound. having deep appreciation for the earthly things of this world is a powerful phenomenon, as it frees us for a time from the hold of an industrial growth society that constantly feeds us messages that we — in our relations with ourselves, each other and the earth, and without consumer goods — are not enough (macy, 2014). i think also of cajete (1994) and hampton’s (1995) reminder that when our minds and bodies are attuned to the seasons, cycles and natural rhythms we open to different forms of knowledge and wisdom. we are also somewhat released from the clutch of the industrial template of clock time and institutional scheduling. the process of drawing, and especially of drawing directly in response to the phenomena of the natural world, has a power to bring me to this deeper sense of rhythm, feeling and knowing. there is a sense of flow that is akin to the process of water itself. it is a process not easily put to words and there is good reason for this: the hemisphere of the brain that processes images, forms and space differs from the side that processes rational language. in creative practice, like in meditation (bai, 2015), we see things as a whole rather than in categorized and separate parts; we sense the world as being interconnected. i think often of gregory bateson’s idea that ‘when we find meaning in art, our thinking is most in sync with nature’ (van boeckel, 2011, 1). i want to clarify that my finding the rain beautiful and appreciating its cleansing freshness does not mean i prism vasko (2020) prism 50 3(1) romanticise it in an idealised kind of way (though an appreciation of the romantic in itself is not a bad thing). westcoast rain is a force of its own that i need to respect, sometimes in the form of facing daunting expenses to stave a leaky roof, panic over a flash flood a couple of years ago that had me wading ankle deep and bailing it away from the door in attempts to prevent it from entering the house, and constantly checking the downspouts and crawlspace of an old home to prevent worrying damage. i am also well aware of floods that have caused much more serious consequences as well as loss of life, both near and far. walking outside, however, gives me another relationship with it, as does drawing — even when i need to stop drawing altogether because the paper is too wet to absorb the ink from my pen. after doing my drawing of the trunk of an alder tree and the delicate and exuberant moss that clings to it, i walk back along the path that runs parallel to the creek. the other trees make themselves known to me — the way a young alder is struggling for room under a taller cedar; a tall trunk of unidentifiable species, now dead, its top blown off by a one of the gales we’ve had — it is now feeding ground for an enthusiastic redshafted flicker. after the torrential rains the air is crystal fresh, as if newly born, and i am grateful for it being morning. i know that later in the day the exhaust from engines and traffic will taint the atmosphere and i think twice about taking my vehicle into town for the errand i was going to run — is it really necessary? certainly, it is necessary on many days, but it is necessary today? i also notice how i feel brighter with the freshness, the sunshine and the existence of blue sky above me. after the mid-winter blanket of grey that hung over us, after the repeated downpours, the world feels different. such a simple thing, really, to be fueled by the energy of the sun and especially after being cleansed by rain. i think of macy’s principle of gratitude and how the connection to this simple thing is indeed far more than just itself. making space in one’s life for a creative contemplative practice is about making space to be with oneself, and to explore and cultivate one’s connection with the larger world and the cosmos. it is an experience of deepening within and expanding without. for my own practice, what i have found particularly relevant and meaningful, especially considering the time in which we now find ourselves, is connecting to the more-than-human and to the larger cosmos. in a practice of drawings of bark that focus on tree trunks and walks that contemplate the effects of weather, i am creating a sense of self that includes larger spheres of being and includes the living air, the atmosphere, the flowing rivers, the turning earth. faced with news of abuse on the atmosphere and of climate catastrophe, many of us are gripped by the question of what, in my own small and limited way, can i do? returning to the idea that our ecological crises begin with what is within, we can consciously work on our relations with the natural world and the larger cosmos, and in the case of climate, with the weather itself. noticing, engaging, becoming open to these things are a humble but powerful beginning. prism vasko (2020) prism 51 3(1) 8. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 9. acknowledgements i would like to thank charles scott for his helpful and attentive feedback on an earlier draft of this article, and for rich conversations on these topics. 10. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 11. to cite this article: vasko, z. (2020). inner and outer weather: creative practice as contemplative ecological inquiry. prism, 3(1), 40-52 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301205 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism vasko (2020) prism 52 3(1) 12. references abram, d. (2010). becoming animal: an earthly cosmology. new york: random house. atkins, s. and snyder, m. (2018). nature-based expressive arts therapy. philadelphia: jessica kingsley publishers. bai, h. (2012). reclaiming our moral agency through healing: a call to moral, social, environmental activists. journal of moral education 41(3), 311-327. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03 057240.2012.691628 bai, h. (2015). peace with the earth: animism and contemplative ways. cultural studies of science education 10(1), 135-147. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11422013-9501-z bai, h. (2019). soil, soul, society: regeneration from the vital core. ubc research seminar. retrieved from https://mediasite.audiovisual.ubc.ca/mediasite/play/a57 b05bb7c6d4c64918dca64b7271da91d bai, h. (2019). on teacher education: the soil of our soul and cultivating a contemplative practice. research in focus, simon fraser university faculty of education. retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/sfu-education-research bringhurst, r. (2008). the tree of meaning: language, mind and ecology. berkeley: counterpoint. cajete, g. (1994). look to the mountain: an ecology of indigenous education. durango, colorado: kivaki press. drum, k. (2020). we need a massive climate war effort – now: only major spending on clean energy r&d can save us. mother jones january/february. retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/kevindrum-climate-change-reseach/ evernden, n. (1993). the natural alien: humankind and the environment. toronto: university of toronto press. glesne, c. (2018). foreword. in atkins, s. and snyder, m. nature-based expressive arts therapy (p. 9). philadelphia: jessica kingsley publishers. greene, m. (1995). releasing the imagination: essays on education, the arts, and social change. san francisco: jossey-bass. greene, m. (2001). variations on a blue guitar: the lincoln center institute lectures on aesthetic education. new york: teachers college press. hampton, e. (1995). toward a redefinition of indian education. in m. battist & j. barman (eds.), first nations education in canada: the circle unfolds. vancouver: ubc press. hillman, j. (1995). a psyche the size of the earth. foreward. in t. roszak, m.e. gomes & a.d. kanner, ecopsychology: restoring the earth, healing the mind (p. xvii). berkeley: counterpoint. klein, n. (2019). on fire: the burning case for a green new deal. toronto: alfred a. knopf canada macy, j. (2014). coming back to life: the updated guide to the work the reconnects. gabriola island, bc: new society publishers. orr, d. (2004). earth in mind: on education, environment and the human prospect. washington: island press. purser, r. & loy, d. (2013). beyond mcmindfulness. huffington post. retrieved https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyondmcmindfulness_b_3519289 van boeckel, j. (2011). when we find meaning in art, our thinking is most in sync with nature: a review of an ecology of mind. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023015_ when_we_find_meaning_in_art_our_thinking_is_most_ in_sync_with_nature_a_review_of_an_ecology_of_min d stoknes, p.e. (2018). foreword. in atkins, s. and snyder, m. nature-based expressive arts therapy (p. 12). philadelphia: jessica kingsley publishers. stoknes, p.e. (2017). how to transform apocalypse fatigue into action on global warming [video file]. retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/per_espen_stoknes_how_to _transform_apocalypse_fatigue_into_action_on_global_ warming?language=en wilson, e.o. (1984). biophilia. harvard university press https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057240.2012.691628 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057240.2012.691628 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11422-013-9501-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11422-013-9501-z https://mediasite.audiovisual.ubc.ca/mediasite/play/a57b05bb7c6d4c64918dca64b7271da91d https://mediasite.audiovisual.ubc.ca/mediasite/play/a57b05bb7c6d4c64918dca64b7271da91d https://soundcloud.com/sfu-education-research https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/kevin-drum-climate-change-reseach/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/kevin-drum-climate-change-reseach/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023015_when_we_find_meaning_in_art_our_thinking_is_most_in_sync_with_nature_a_review_of_an_ecology_of_mind https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023015_when_we_find_meaning_in_art_our_thinking_is_most_in_sync_with_nature_a_review_of_an_ecology_of_mind https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023015_when_we_find_meaning_in_art_our_thinking_is_most_in_sync_with_nature_a_review_of_an_ecology_of_mind https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023015_when_we_find_meaning_in_art_our_thinking_is_most_in_sync_with_nature_a_review_of_an_ecology_of_mind https://www.ted.com/talks/per_espen_stoknes_how_to_transform_apocalypse_fatigue_into_action_on_global_warming?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/per_espen_stoknes_how_to_transform_apocalypse_fatigue_into_action_on_global_warming?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/per_espen_stoknes_how_to_transform_apocalypse_fatigue_into_action_on_global_warming?language=en prism journal volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 68 © 2020 prism issn: 2514-5347 de-classrooming: moving learning outside the classroom andrew p. carlin department of portuguese, university of macau, macau sar, china (acarlin@um.edu.mo) received: 11/02/2020 accepted for publication: 19/06/2020 published: 19/07/2020 abstract this paper reflects on a teaching problem highlighted as part of a second-year undergraduate module in sociology, taught at a uk based institution of higher education. the specific teaching problem – that of student learning as encountered and revealed in seminars – was nested within other issues; some of which related to the characteristics of the discipline of sociology itself, whilst others, related to more localised issues such as the choice of materials available for students to access and download. whilst the lecture and course material was fixed, the flexibility of the seminar framework enabled the exploration and implementation of an ad hoc intervention in the form of ‘de-classrooming’. this intervention was utilised and developed to enhance the knowledge base and conceptual understanding of the student cohort in relation to “everyday life” sociology. the ‘declassrooming’ intervention proved to be an efficacious pedagogic device, which facilitated dynamic levels of flexibility and creativity by both teacher and learners. as a pedagogic device, it manifested a number of key benefits: such as aiding the clarification of conceptual confusions. ultimately, the de-classrooming intervention operated to establish an empowered sense of ownership where knowledge and knowledge-generation were concerned, and afforded students unorthodox opportunities for learning enhancement. keywords: affinity spaces; anti-cognitivism; teaching sociology; de-classrooming; everyday life; reflexivity 1. introduction this paper is organised to follow a version of gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle. gibbs’ model was selected because of the place that it affords feelings. the notion of ‘feelings’ is important as this was an area identified as a core topic within the sociology module – and its seminar meetings – that this paper discusses. following gibbs’ cycle, the paper details the array of feelings experienced by both the author (the seminar tutor) and the students, as they encountered lectures and seminars on this module. gibbs’ cycle and the place of feelings within the process and experience of reflection is thus aligned with the elicitation of comments and reflections in response to encounters with sociological knowledge (in a lecture context), and the exploration of this knowledge in a seminar context. the issues highlighted also uncover a related problem – the https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:acarlin@um.edu.mo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5138-9384 prism carlin (2020) prism 69 3(1) teaching of highly theorised subject material, and the ability or the remit of the teacher to conceive and implement ‘real time’ creative solutions. teachers in higher education face discipline-specific and procedural problems, and both tend to impact on the teaching of disciplinary knowledge (carlin, 2019). discipline-specific problems perpetuate ongoing issues where the management of teaching practice is concerned; such teaching related issues extend far beyond the remit and practice of general teaching qualifications and contributions to the learning & teaching literature. for instance, using a computer suite presents issues for teachers in various disciplines; however, using a computer suite for hands-on computer aided design sessions presents task-specific problems, which are particular to the design and engineering fields that use it as a practical application. in this paper we discuss a teaching problem that may be familiar across various disciplines; but here is presented and confronted as a discipline-specific problem as part of a particular module in the study of sociology. it is in reponse to this teaching problem that i realised and implemented an ad hoc intervention, which resulted in shifting and enhancing students’ learning and assuaged their concerns about assessment. as james and brookfield note, ‘[t]eaching at any level requires creativity on a daily basis as we wonder how to bring subjects alive in ways that resonate with students or make the best of constrained situations in which to learn’ (james and brookfield, 2014 p. 54). the teaching problem and the need for my interventionist solution became apparent as a result of a seeming discrepancy between student claims to understand the subject material (being cascaded during lectures); and, their subsequent ways of recounting and engaging with the knowledge during the seminar sessions (carlin and murdoch 2019). lecture engagement and the limitations of lectures as efficacious learning experiences is detailed widely elsewhere (bligh 2006; cavanagh 2011; dyson 2008; huxham 2010; vandiver and walsh 2010), and it is not the purpose of this paper to re-examine this. rather, the remit of this paper is to focus on the flexibility required within the boundary of a seminar context, to introduce a creative solution to resolve a discrepancy between students’ claims to understand knowledge gleaned as part of a lecture, and the actual displays of understanding within the smaller-scale context of the seminar. as thomas and seely brown note, ‘[b]oundaries serve not only as constraints but also, oftentimes, as catalysts for innovation. encountering boundaries spurs the imagination to become more active in figuring out novel solutions within the constraints of the situation or context’ (thomas and seely brown 2011, p. 35). 2. contexts this section outlines a number of points and contexts relevant to the consideration of the teaching problem (highlighted above) in relation to sociology as a discipline; generally, these tend to operate as limitations to creativity for both teacher and learners. 2.1 characterising sociology as a discipline, sociology has been characterised by distinctive concerns with its orientation towards specific types of methodological problems, such as generalisability, validity, and reliability (znaniecki, 1934, 1963). these methodological heritages are introduced to students of sociology as historical legacy issues, which connect with the founding of the discipline, and tend to promote the idea that social phenomena must be studied in the same – or at least a similar – way to the natural sciences; (stemming from its need to establish itself as a credible discipline within academia). one of the problems associated with sociology’s legacy and its orientation towards methodological and epistemological practice, is its tendency to categorise social life in dualistic terms and polarities; these may be useful as heuristic devices, but do not necessarily help the discipline move forward (sharrock and watson 1988); e.g., objectivity vs subjectivity, quantitative vs qualitative, structure vs agency, and macro vs micro distinctions. sociology is also distinctive because of its planful practices of “estrangement” (bittner 1973, p. 123); that is to say, as a discipline, it defines and discusses matters in often obtuse ways. these tend to be shared and prism carlin (2020) prism 70 3(1) understood by members of common sociological culture; however, the teaching of sociology is often received as an abstract and heavily intellectualised endeavour, ‘that partake[s] more of the character of theoretical formulation than of realistic description’ (bittner 1973, p. 123). this is generally caused by the reconceptualisation of ‘every day’ words, to form a highly technicised vocabulary particular to sociology (rose 1960). through the reconstruction of ordinary descriptions of mundane practices as professional descriptions, ‘sociologists always attempt to render accounts of matters about which accounts already exist. for example, to be analysed, kinship structure is always already known to those who constitute it’ (bittner 1973, p. 116). therefore, it is right that we empathise with students and the inevitability of their puzzlement when confronted with the incongruities between sociology, and what mchoul (2014) describes as the “humdrum” of their own life-world (or lebenswelt), for this disjunctiveness is incarnate in accounts of sociology. indeed, this sociological attitude ‘makes war upon that world-which-we-live’ (wieder 1980, p. 75). some sociologists acknowledge these incongruities, how these are built into the fabric of sociology as an academic discipline (for example see blumer 1956), and the use of a professional vocabulary that trades upon ordinary words that already have common-sense definitions (rose 1960). the theoreticised departures from ordinary descriptions (sacks 1963), in the use of conceptual apparatuses that are at variance with how people understand ordinary concepts, and this seemingly is for the sole convenience of sociology (bittner 2013). part of the point of sociology as an academic pursuit is to differentiate itself from the methodological individualism of psychologistic approaches; by adopting abstract views of the social whole, sociology sets out to avoid the reification of sole or individual standpoints. yet within “introductory” sociology, students learn that their own personal world-views (or weltanschauung) should not be at stake; for example, c. wright mills (1959) distinguishes between “personal troubles” and “public issues”. furthermore much sociological theory is attributable to individual ideological preferences (sorokin 1958). indeed, the esotericism and reductionism associated with the sociological lexicon, reifies individual experience, as part of the decontextualisation and recontextualisation of versions of experience in relation to the complexity of the social whole (smith 1974). as such, there is much “repair work” that needs to be done to accommodate and resolve the disjuncture between the directly and subjectively experienced lebenswelt and sociologists’ versions of the lebenswelt. 2.2 teaching as a substitute the seminar activities that i refer to as part of this paper relate to a respected sociological psychology module in the department of sociology at a large north west university, in england (uk). the module differed in comparison to similar units developed and taught at other uk sociology departments’, in that its ethos was resolutely anti-cognitive; it explored and discussed mind and body, emotions and everyday life without cognitive residue. as a member of contract staff, with the attendant learning curve of being at a different institution with its own institutional preferences for assessment, trying to obtain departmental support with teaching difficulties and being further limited by the scheduling of time within the department, i experienced a higher level of “precarity” in comparison to salaried faculty members (chakrabortty and weale 2016; coombe and clancy 2002; o’hara 2015; percy and beaumont 2008). 3. description the second-year ba undergraduate module on sociological psychology provided students with a thorough grounding in the debates surrounding the mind/body problem in sociology. it constructively aligned the technicalities of the debates with the level of the module, and the module leader had elected to focus upon the sociological theories of “symbolic interaction”. as an exemplification of the mind/body problem the module content utilised the sociological subfield of the “sociology of emotions”; this involved addressing the further subfield of the “sociology of everyday life”. prism carlin (2020) prism 71 3(1) as occasions for learning, the lectures “seemed” to be going well: routine gestures of recipiency were encouraging, understanding checks were met with approval and occasional requests for clarification, and questions during lectures appeared to be relevant and insightful. however, during the seminars it was evident that students were not really grasping the gap betweens ociological knowledge, as expounded in textbooks, and the observation and recounting of subjective experience in relation to the everyday sociological phenomenon that surrounded them. one of the constitutive issues appeared to be the generic problem of students downloading materials from the internet, without critical intermediation (brabazon 2007). another constitutive issue, a more discipline-specific problem, related to the learners’ selection of materials as legitimated – and promoted – by the discipline; sometimes these were regarded as suitable because of their availability through the library. however, other seemingly relevant readings (e.g. adler, adler and fontana 1987; kalekin-fishman 2013; sztompka 2008) were unsuitable for the phenomena of inquiry (everyday life) as part of the individual unit concerned; these readings tended to divert learners away from the notion of everyday life as a nebulous phenomena of interest. through their focus on the theories of everyday life, students were avoiding everyday life as an actual lived experienced by people in the world. within the “discursive space” (teo, 2016, p. 91) of the seminar room, i learned through the students’ participation that something was lacking. students’ appreciation of the content of lectures was evident, however the necessary leap from abstract knowledge to contextualised understandings, did not seem to be taking place. in order to tackle and overcome this limitation, a disruptive intervention was required. thus began a process of trial and error, to see if i (or rather, the seminar group collectively) could co-create a solution, to enable the students to not only engage with the knowledge and associated assessments with confidence, but also encounter and grapple with the knowledge in contextualised and creative ways. despite the use of provocative source materials as part of the sequence of lectures, such as video clips of encounters in first dates, scenes from seinfeld, and youtube footage of pedestrians; the seminar discussions still suggested that a different kind of intervention was required. the teaching problem required a ‘repair’ capable of addressing and teasing out actual everyday encounters and aligning these with ‘everyday life’ in sociologically meaningful ways. 4. de-classrooming the phrase “de-classrooming the classroom” as a pedagogic technique was coined to conceptualise the introduction of simulation and gaming into classroom environments (sharrock and watson, 1985a, 1985b; watson and sharrock 1985). gaming may be open to various disciplinary and learning contexts, but each of these various priorities – of the teacher, not necessarily of the learners – are immanent to the game (francis 1985). de-classrooming the classroom may involve the deliberate rearrangement of a classroom, the introduction or placement of non-traditional classroom materials to suggest that it, or part of it, is pro tempore, not a classroom. within simulation and gaming, de-classrooming utilises a “submerged” (sharrock and watson 1985a, p. 37) classroom space. in terms of student creativity, it should be noted that the de-classrooming protocol detailed and developed as part of my interventionist tactic – as part of the paper here, differs from the context of simulation and gaming. my use of the term ‘declassrooming’ and its associated pedagogic practice repurposes the notion to identify an actual and physical shift in learning; as such, it becomes a practice that takes learning outside of the confines of the traditional classroom setting. the paper thus sets out the case for de-classrooming students by taking them to different locations. my repurposed notion of de-classrooming thus resituated both the discipline-specific context of the material and generated a creative intervention by actually moving the seminar to new and non-traditional places. by doing this, the students’ knowledge and understanding of the notion of ‘everyday life’ shifted; they started to see it as a collection of not only prism carlin (2020) prism 72 3(1) “humdrum” experiences and routines, but also as a site of potentially rich sociological phenomena. the ad hoc intervention revealed and identified what we might term “affinity spaces” (neely and marone 2016); the recontextualised space enabled students to witness mundane social phenomena for themselves, and at the same time encouraged them to consider the phenomena of everyday life as something that can be conceptualised and theorised in sociological terms. the de-classrooming exercise discussed here involved exiting the classroom and moving the student cohort to affinity spaces (e.g., bus stops, campus cafes and food courts, university libraries, nearby public spaces) with which the students were familiar as part of their incumbency as a student. these affinity spaces as routinised environments enabled the students to encounter and observe ordinary everyday life as part of their membership of society. 5. feelings in accordance with gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle, the place of feelings occasioned by the teaching of this seminar, (and, which precipitated the de-classrooming intervention), played an important role. this includes my own feelings, as well as those of the students’ that were expressed during the seminars. 5.1 deflation whilst some students saw the sociological literature surrounding everyday life as a “threshold concept” (meyer and land 2005), others expressed displeasure; what (certainly in the planning stages for the course) were expected to be enjoyable seminar activities, such as the inclusion of ‘every day’ video-clips exacerbated the matter. as such, students recognised a disjuncture between the ‘data’ that they were used to being provided with on a degree course (demographic statistics and socio-economic status), and what was being referred to as a datum for this unit. for me as the teacher, this was deflating; for the students, this was frustrating. 5.2 confusion i was puzzled by the negativity and hostile reactions of students towards the inclusion of everyday cultural resources and objects, (“what is the point?”; “anyone can see what’s going on!”); however, through a process of reflection with colleagues i came to see that their hostility derived from anxiety about assessment (“what can i write about?” the nature of the identified phenomena and how these were to form the basis for assessment purposes produced “monsters of doubt” for some students (hawkins and edwards 2015); and as part of the teaching there was an appreciable amount of time spent managing students’ anxieties. 5.3 frustration i was disillusioned at the available readings, which used the terminology “sociology of everyday life” yet were obfuscating and obstructive to get at the phenomena intended in this unit (e.g. adler, adler and fontana 1987; kalekin-fishman 2013; sztompka 2008). as far as the students were concerned, these articles were unproblematic and seemingly relevant to the topic, especially as they appeared to be pertinent and useful for inclusion as part of the assignments. some of the recommended readings on everyday life were geared precisely to what the author did not want students to do (e.g. highmore 2002). the frustration was two-fold: not only were appropriate readings not available – providing access to these would have entailed infringements of copyright – providing comprehensible background to these readings would have required a substantial block of the unit in itself. 5.4 isolation having taught sociology and introductory sociology at a number of institutions, a noticeable feature of teaching syllabi in practice is that the learning and attitude towards sociology, established at the beginning of degree programs through the assignment of “classic texts”, gradually dissipates when faced with modules on substantive topics. encouraging students to develop a sociological conception of their surroundings receives less priority in a changing discipline and the pressures of course development to keep abreast of these changes. whilst this is understandable, given delphi studies of thought leaders as to what constitutes a curriculum in sociology (grauerholz and gibson 2006; persell and mateiro 2013), it was a practical problem for prism carlin (2020) prism 73 3(1) the author as a member of “contract” staff, trying to obtain departmental support to navigate a shift in the seminar teaching and learning activities (alencar, fleith and pereira 2017). 6. intervention the sociology of everyday life may be intuitively appealing, but it is difficult in pedagogical terms, both because of its familiarity and its disjunctiveness with ‘traditional’ sociology. as such, a necessary intervention would have to invert the focus of sociology. estrangement practices (bittner, 1973) in sociology may rely on what kenneth burke (1954) called a ‘perspective by incongruity’, conceptualising something by viewing it through the frame of something completely different, e.g., ‘[t]he comparative student of man’s work learns about doctors by studying plumbers; and about prostitutes by studying psychiatrists’ (hughes 1984, p. 316). such estrangement practices are worked at in advocating creativity in education. as james and brookfield note, the most, ‘memorable critical incidents students experience in their learning are those when they are required to “come at” their learning in a new way, when they are “jerked out” of the humdrum by some unexpected challenge or unanticipated task’ (james and brookfield 2004, p. 6-7) however, the sentiment expressed in this iteration of creative learning is what this de-classrooming exercise – moving learning out of the classroom – attempted to reverse. the intention was that by de-classrooming to a “humdrum” venue or affinity space with which students were familiar, it would be possible both to see familiar settings as worthy of investigation, and to see sociological phenomena in action. yes, to provide a “new way” of addressing a topic; not to see the humdrum through a perspective by incongruity, or a new way, but instead to look again at what was taken for granted. rather than trying to upend the “normal and familiar” (james and brookfield 2004, p. 6-7), as achieved in sociological accounts, de-classrooming attempted to bring everyday life into sociology. to adapt vygotsky on ‘fossilization’ (1978, pp. 63-64), the traditional module content and structure focussed on students’ role as being fixed, when instead creative innovations and interventions can allow students to witness knowledge and social processes in new and refreshed ways. in seeking a way to make the seemingly inaccessible transparent to those students not persuaded of the analytic value of everyday life sociology, “de-classrooming the classroom” (sharrock and watson 1985b, p. 196), enabled them to witness everyday life as a sociological phenomena for themselves. as a de-classrooming activity had not been set out in the module prospectus, i offered this opportunity to students, which they accepted. 7. evaluation & analysis a key achievement was to successfully engage students who had not yet come to terms with everyday life sociology, to see how assignments could be written in relevant ways. yet there were unanticipated consequences on student learning that went beyond the remit of this module and seminar series. readers of this journal are familiar with “reflexivity” and the professional benefits of reflection. there are other positions vis-à-vis reflexivity; some of these align with the processes of reflection found in professional practice, not all are helpful for students in teaching sociology. the de-classrooming activities illustrated another version of sociological reflexivity. in watching other people’s activities within affinity spaces – such as joining a queue in a food court, sitting at a booth in the campus coffee shop, standing proximate to a bus stop on a busy road – students witnessed in situ how activities may be affected by their presence as participants. this proved to be a profound realisation in student learning and the study of human interaction, and how ‘observer roles’ (gold 1958) impacting on the practice of sociological research. this also fed into discussions on the recording of observations, such as the taking of fieldnotes; and, on the ethics of doing covert observation (calvey 2017). de-classrooming enabled students to witness active environments in which passive readings or remote discussions of research ethics and sociological roles (participant, observer, participating observer, etc.) are enacted. crucially, de-classrooming has such analytic and pedagogic potential because students are able to prism carlin (2020) prism 74 3(1) witness everyday life activities and environments from within. other unintended benefits associated with the declassrooming exercises included students witnessing for themselves a range of concepts, such as observer roles; and how grouping together to observe the setting (taking over an entire booth) affected what participants in the setting did. this illustrated “sociological reflexivity” to students, which had been a problematic notion in other units within the sociology degree program. hence, the positives of this exercise were not limited to this unit. frustration at textbooks may be misplaced: in engaging with the sociological literature, it is apparent that the representation of topics is not always based upon actual occurrences and has more to do with paradigmatic biases (lynch and bogen 1997; wong 2002). furthermore, a “common core” of the discipline is difficult to discern from the analysis of contents of textbooks (keith and ender 2004). in the light of teaching and learning literature, this may be considered to have been a vygotskyan challenge – for teacher and students – to make a breakthrough with the new resources that were available (lantolf 2011, p. 26). as a teacher, i took individual seminar groups down to the ground-floor café and treated this as an “affinity space” (neely and marone 2016); here students could see social organisation in action (e.g. aspects of queues). suddenly, within a non-classroom environment, social order became a tractable matter, not an abstract concept. in moving the learning outside of the classroom students were able to appreciate how we (students, teachers, textbooks) become epistemological equals regarding phenomena (atkinson and hunt 2008), illustrating that students have valuable insights and are authorities, too. in considering the use of declassrooming there is also another layer of reflection. historically, “de-classrooming the classroom” as a pedagogic device was oriented to the nature of power in the classroom. the traditional classroom was seen as authoritarian and this was seen to have deleterious connotations, such as student passivity and demotivation. de-classrooming provided the opportunity to democratise power across the teacherstudent cohort (sharrock and watson 1985a, p. 36), and release the classroom from its authoritarian cast. the notion of student creativity requires careful thought at the design stage of de-classrooming activities. discipline-specific parameters impose constraints on research, such as considerations of objectivity, generalisation, validity and research ethics. yet these are not necessarily constraints upon student creativity: they provide issues that enable active engagement with settings (questions such as how representative is this setting? is the research method suitable for the phenomenon under investigation?), which can provide a reassuring structure for those students who are discomfited by setting research questions for themselves. although de-classrooming requires planning, student creativity is a constituent feature of de-classrooming activities. a teacher’s creativity in devising declassrooming activities is balanced by students’ creativity in moving their own learning outside the classroom. the teacher’s adumbration of ordinary settings and activities as potential sites for task-specific observation activates students’ creativity. what this means in practical terms is that students are given the freedom – within discipline-specific parameters – to set activities and ask questions for themselves. for instance, some students observed that certain settings were not public but semi-public spaces, they were accountably ‘credentialised’, wherein only incumbents of the category ‘student’ were able to access these (e.g. communal areas within halls of residence, the student union bar). student observers also looked at seating formations, patterns of communication within peer groups, and mobile phone use. these field-specific phenomena provided students with creative ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem’ of locating everyday life as materials for observation and assessment. i facilitated the use of students’ observations within summative assessments by accepting these as resources for inclusion in essays and examination. class discussion following the de-classrooming exercises afforded students a sense of “ownership” of their observations, as unique and personalised. peer prism carlin (2020) prism 75 3(1) support, in terms of soliciting feedback on a student’s observations from their colleagues, was consolidated by scaffolding concepts within a plenary setting. a plenary session following de-classrooming activities proved to be the appropriate venue to discuss readings that informed the students’ observations. this process for working up analyses reassured students of the eligibility of their observations within assessments. in making the offer to decentralise the learning environment, which i felt necessary because it had not been itemised in the module outline, i had already thought carefully about how this could be done. what then seemed like a collaborative decision at the time was, on reflection, a tutor-initiated preference; an engineered attempt to allow students to see everyday life phenomena for themselves. moreover, as democratising as this exercise was, i set the terms – what to look for, what to regard as eligible phenomena, and how long the exercise lasted. furthermore, because i defined the threshold – the threshold concepts for learning, to what extent was the students’ creativity in their realisation of sociological phenomena in everyday life subsumed by a teacher’s creativity? to what extent was the traditional power structure, which de-classrooming sets itself up against, “submerged” (sharrock and watson 1985a, p. 37) within the declassrooming activity itself? in the realisation of everyday life activities as sociological phenomena, de-classrooming may indeed be used effectively as a creative pedagogical device. however, there is a double hermeneutic to this creativity. de-classrooming (e.g. taking students to the campus coffee shop, to the library – not to search for resources but to observe library users’ activities, going out onto busy pedestrianised precincts to watch pedestrian traffic and their navigation practices) fosters creativity by encouraging students’ development and use of what is referred to as a “sociological imagination” (mills 1959). however, it should be noted that it is still the teacher who decides upon the extent to which such creativity is unleashed or afforded. it is the teacher who is responsible for formulating how de-classrooming is relevant to the course, the timing of the declassrooming activities within the sequence of the course, the extent of building learning from the declassrooming activities into subsequent course content, and establishing the extent to which the declassrooming activities provide sociologically significant material. this layer of reflection is important in planning declassrooming activities because, in considering the fostering of creativeness in higher education, we should be attuned to boundaries between teachers’ agendas, power structures and students’ learning. furthermore, creativity may be adjudged on learning gain, as the extent to which students’ appreciation of concepts and activities can be considered as outcomes of declassrooming; and, learning enhancement, stretching what can be made from initial observations into focused, coherent analyses. this paper thus suggests that this layer of reflection be brought to other pedagogic and assessment strategies. in setting the terms and relevancies for such exercises, we should be alert to claims of “student empowerment”, and consider the extent to which tutor-initiation versus student-creativity is embedded in the process from the outset. 8. conclusion: transferability in formalising de-classrooming as a pedagogic device this paper has explored a discipline-specific example as a showcase for student learning. furthermore, because of this discipline-specific orientation – the attention to teaching and learning sociology in particular – it is possible to distinguish de-classrooming from antisociological accounts of learning environments “in the wild”, and the consequent insufflation of cognitive theorising formulated by hutchins (1996). declassrooming is conceptually coherent with the discipline-specific profile of the phenomena under inspection and available for analysis. however, the outline of de-classrooming contained within this paper is not intended to bind it to sociology. although this paper discusses an avowedly sociological context, de-classrooming has a more generalised potential for use in other disciplines in higher education, such as design and engineering, digital humanities, fashion, human geography, information prism carlin (2020) prism 76 3(1) science, music, physics, among many others. as kleiman (2011) notes: ‘higher education is full of intelligent, creative people who understand all too well – through their own dayto-day experience – that learning and teaching is complex and, sometimes, chaotic, and that the systems and processes that we create around that experience, or have created for us, are not always best suited to dealing with that complexity. it is also clear that the professional act of teaching with the still significant but also significantly decreasing autonomy attached to this role, provides fertile conditions for people to be creative in order to confront those complexities and to really enhance students’ learning’ (kleiman 2011, 62.8) university teachers may consider how the introduction of de-classrooming may be of benefit to student learning in the realisation of threshold concepts and specific issues within their own fields, for enabling ownership of materials (such as data and analyses that eventuate from the de-classrooming activity), and in providing opportunities for learning enhancement. prism carlin (2020) prism 77 3(1) 9. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 10. acknowledgements with thanks to dave calvey, jac eke and chris porter (all of department of sociology, manchester metropolitan university) and chrissi nerantzi (university teaching academy, manchester metropolitan university) for their support and opportunities for professional reflection. craig hammond for providing detailed editorial feedback. special thanks to rod watson for opportunities to discuss ‘de-classrooming’. this paper could not have been written without the guidance and encouragement of the late maria wowk. i was privileged to be a substitute unit leader on maria’s sociological psychology course at the department of sociology, manchester metropolitan university. maria had honed this second-year undergraduate course over many years, and it was unique within uk sociology departments’ offers in its resolutely anti-cognitive position in discussing mind and body, emotions and everyday life, and being without cognitive residue. the author was familiar with the materials used for this course, and endorsed fully the analytic position adopted. this paper was supported by the macau science and technology development fund, award number 0054/2019/a1. 11. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 12. to cite this article: carlin, a. (2020). de-classrooming: moving learning outside the classroom. prism, 3(1), 68-80 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301202 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism carlin (2020) prism 78 3(1) 13. references adler, patricia a., adler, peter and fontana, andrea (1987). everyday life sociology. annual review of sociology, 13, 217-235. alencar, eunice m.l. soriano, denise de souza fleith and nielsen pereria (2017). creativity in higher education: challenges and facilitating factors. trends in psychology/temas em psicologia, 25(2), 553-561. https://doi.org/10.9788/tp2017.2-09 atkinson, maxine p. and andrea n. hunt (2008). inquiryguided learning in sociology. teaching sociology, 36(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055x0803600101 bittner, egon (1973). objectivity and realism in sociology. in g. psathas (ed.), phenomenological sociology: issues and applications. new york: john wiley, 109-125. bittner, egon (2013). the concept of organization, ethnographic studies, 13, 175-187. https://doi.org/10.5449/idslu-001091498 bligh, donald a. 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(1978). mind in society. cambridge ma: harvard university press. watson, d. rodney and wesley w. sharrock (1985). some social-interactional aspects of a business game for special purposes in the (l2) teaching of english. in d. crookall, c.s. greenblatt, a. coote, j.h.g. klabbers and d.r. watson (eds.), simulation – gaming in the late 1980s. oxford: pergamon press, 177-186. wieder, d. lawrence (1980). behavioristic operationalism and the life-world: chimpanzees and chimpanzee researchers in face-to-face interaction. sociological inquiry, 50(3/4), 75-103. wong, jean (2002). “applying” conversation analysis in applied linguistics: evaluating dialogue in english as a second language textbooks. international review of applied linguistics in language teaching, 40(1), 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.2002.003 znaniecki, florian (1934). the method of sociology. new york: rinehart and co. znaniecki, florian (1963). cultural sciences. urbana: university of illinois press. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787409355877 https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.2002.003 prism journal prism volume 5. issue 1 (2023) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 5 © 2023 lucy harding, issn: 2514-5347 researching in prison education spaces: thinking and feeling-with posthuman, post-qualitative, feminist (new) materialism ‘beings’ to disentangle methodology lucy harding university of central lancashire, centre for applied educational research (caer), preston, uk (lharding3@uclan.ac.uk) received: 05/05/2022 accepted for publication: 21/10/2022 published: 20/01/2023 abstract in this process-article, i have considered what complexities might affect research of prison education when using posthuman, post qualitative, feminist (new) materialism thinking. through an imagined conversation with these 3 concepts as abstract ‘beings’, i have answered provocative questions about my research methods, apparatus, and ethics. working at the intersections of abstractness (imagined conversations) and materialisms (creative, stitched outcomes and physical prison spaces), we think and feel-through the use of walking interviews, a visual matrix, and diffractive analysis to research the experiences of teachers working in prisons. research of prison education is messy, and in embracing the discomfort, this processarticle will enable others to traverse the knots using creative, affective approaches to research in prisons. in being-with these concepts, i trace the influences of philosophers and theorists in these practices, including the work of deleuze & guattari, braidotti, barad, haraway, manning, st. pierre, springgay, truman, and others. the outcomes are unknown except for the benefit of opening new ways of thinking and feeling with inquiry and the writing of that process. keywords: post-qualitative, posthuman, feminist materialism, diffraction, prison education 1. introduction i invite you to allow your feelings, thoughts, and body to stay with the textures of this process-article which is bound by real and metaphorical strings (haraway, 2016); between differing humans, nonhumans, theories, philosophies, agendas, policies, affects and more.1 i think and feel with theoretical 1 the term process-article comes from the ontology of becoming, the ideas and concepts emerge as i write and as you concepts, recognising this as part of my ‘empirical’ research undertakings (truman, 2019). the topic of education in prisons is a wellresearched phenomenon, but my philosophical underpinnings and transdisciplinary approach may enable a richer exploration of the complexities tied up in prison education research. this work is at the read. the paper, writer, reader, words, ideas are becoming together as an assemblage. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article671 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:lharding3@uclan.ac.uk prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 6 5(1) intersection of many different subject disciplines including but not limited to prison education, criminology, carceral geography, sociology, philosophy, and textiles. the intention here, now, is to feel through the entanglements of different threads in this research; the structural hierarchies of prison education and the post-structural philosophies informing the inquiry. i am pushing against normative structures in academia, which reflects the restrictive norms of prison spaces. both equally constraining, with perceived boundaries that should not be crossed, hegemonic foundations and patriarchal expectations of rule-following and oppression. i am therefore becoming-activist during the writing, working with and against these boundaries, pulling threads of entangled knots, leaving some loose, some tense and some unravelled in an act of erasure. my background in textiles is central to this experience; using language and image i visualise the process for the reader, weaving disparate entities that are brought together in this fold. the writing here is layered and textured with a multitude of affects, these layers are enmeshed through this writing, where knots get tangled further as they would on the back of an embroidery, or further still felting the threads so they can no longer be undone. i represent this through drawings and textile pieces, created in response to the feeling of being both inside and outside of prison and academic borderlines. i firstly outline the very ‘human’ context of why i am undertaking this research and the premise of this process-article. i then delve into the domain of posthumanism, post-qualitative inquiry, and feminist (new) materialisms to explore how these concepts are entangled and to rationalise the research intentions. i do not intend to find answers here, but i invite the reader to feel-through these knots with me, (an early career researcher), at the start of this research journey; hopefully, the outcomes will 2 ‘jail craft’ a term that is multi-layered is linked to dialogue, body language and other discourse practices. it is mentioned frequently by teachers (and officers) as a tacit practice that utilises empathy and affective approaches to diffract and emerge for you – and me – as we read and untangle, becoming-together. 2. context the english government insist that education is crucial in the rehabilitation of prisoners but there is concern that the quality of the education in prisons is not adequate (coates, 2016; prison strategy white paper, 2021). whilst there have been many studies exploring the experiences of prisoners in prison education, the consideration of teacher experiences in this field have largely been ignored. wright (2005) recognises the conflict between teachers in a caring profession, working within a space that is designed to objectify and punish people. he looked at the ‘culture shock’ of novice teacher experiences in prisons and concluded that prison teachers will forever live out their professional lives in a space of liminality, within the in-between or ‘borderlands’ of these opposed spaces, which i suggest can feel like a ‘third space’ for these teachers (soja, 1998). a recent report entitled hidden voices: the experiences of teachers working in prisons by the union of colleges and universities (ucu) & prisoner learning alliance (pla, 2021) has attempted to advocate for these teachers by gathering questionnaire responses regarding experience. of those teachers surveyed for the report (412 responses), 70% stated that they intended to leave the profession in the next 5 years. almost half of the respondents believed that feeling safer in the prison would make it more likely for them to stay in their role. the findings highlighted the complexities of prison teaching, taking on board the need to understand ‘jail craft’.2 the recommendations suggested that the ministry of justice (moj) work with teacher education providers to create prison teacher specific modules or courses. the research i propose here may contribute to the discussions of this and aligns with the moj (2020) areas of research interest which includes ‘deal’ with the changing and complex demands of working in a prison setting (peacock et. al. 2017). the use of the term craft further links with my exploration of stitch and textiles in this weave. prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 7 5(1) themes of ‘space and place’; how space affects interactions (p. 230). vorhaus (2014) looked at prison education through the lens of kant, recognising prisoners as moral agents and asking, ‘is prison education compatible with respect for the status of the prisoner as a moral, autonomous human being?’ taking this into account, and that this research takes a more-than-human approach, it raises the question:3 ‘can research of prison education respect the status of all that exists within prisons as agents?’ the removal of the word autonomous here is significant as the prison space can strip individuals of their autonomy; it is this knot that i seek to explore, whilst traversing various other entanglements as part of the research. i seek to ensure that all within a prison are given agency in this research design, yet in trying to encompass all, there are exclusions that cannot be avoided. prisoners are not participants, yet, they make the prison space, giving life to its structure and so, are entangled in this web with their omnipresence. their relationship along with all the nonhuman elements of the prison are emergent in the research and so are already there. therefore, this process-article diffractively feelsthrough these knots, bringing the teacher voice to the fore, acknowledging that the prison education space, the human and non-human participants and all that this encompasses is and always was there, but also that it is (k)not there or is yet to be. 3. inquiry methods this process-article or meshwork is informed by tim ingold’s (2011, 2016) use of meshwork as a metaphor for life being lived along lines of becoming. ingold speaks of entanglements to mean literal interwoven lines that don’t just cross in a network but materially grow and move together (ingold, 2011). furthermore, entanglement as described by barad in (murris, 2022) is not merely when two separate entities become intwined together, but by becoming 3 in posthuman writings the term ‘more-than-human’ is used to represent a greater range of relations between humans and non-humans, society, nature and all the ‘forces, bonds, attractions, and interactions’ in between entangled, they lose their separate identities, their autonomy, and become part of the same knot. with this view, i am not able to separate all that i am from the research, or all that the teachers or prisoners are, we are all entangled in this becoming-together. this then further entangles deleuze and guattari’s (1987) ideas relating to the rhizome; here i see the teachers, prisoners, and everything else that matters, as a rhizome together. as illustrated in figure 1 (below), this can create new lines of flight that are still emmeshed with all that influence it. the terms post-qualitative, post human, feminist (new) materialisms are ambiguous and abstract concepts that relate to methods-becoming; they are therefore difficult to hold down and evade a single clear definition or explanation. however, below i setout to describe my interpretations of the concepts and my reasons for using them. i am using a post-qualitative or ‘more than qualitative’ approach in this process-article to enact meaning making (introna, 2018); sharing this research method in such a way leaves me vulnerable, as i share my raw thinking. post-qualitative enquiry has a responsibility to not only observe the practice but also to be part of transforming it; pushing methodological boundaries, it challenges the status quo offering ‘more than’ data collection and analysis. as truman (2018, in gunnarsson, 2018) describes it: ‘we need to shift from thinking about methods as (whatmore, 2002). ‘it challenges the idea that humans are separable from their worlds, or that society is separable from nature’ (noorani & brigstocke, 2018). prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 8 5(1) processes of gathering data toward methods as a becoming entangled in relations’ (p. 204). the posthuman element in this process-article enables me to think and feel-with many different material threads to de-centre the human, considering ‘objects, things, animals, elements, and theories’ (ulmer, 2017, p. 10). ulmer suggests that in doing this new way of thinking in our research, ‘the research might become more than itself’ (p. 10). feminist (new) materialism is a term used with its own entanglements. the use of the word ‘new’ as part of this concept contains the potential to dismiss prior ontological thoughts and associations (dupuis et al, 2022). however, there is a turn in recognising materialisms from a feminist perspective. if we erase the ‘feminism’ (which implies consideration of race, gender, sexuality, and ability) there is concern that humanism and whiteness is centred (truman, 2018). the term feminist (new) materialism is therefore used here as a provocation to foreground ethics and politics as part of my inquiries. to give definitive definitions for post-qualitative, posthuman, and feminist (new) materialistm is beyond the scope of this article – furthermore, such an expectation would align with what murris terms an objectivist, positivist paradigm (murris, 2022a); and, to a large extent would operate as an antithesis to these concepts. barad, (2007) a key thinker in this field insists that concepts cannot ‘be’ without the material influence of those who interact with them to make them understandable. and, so, i attempt to do that here, through and with the writing. i am using an imagined conversation with these 3 concepts as embodied abstract ‘beings.’ they pose provocative questions for me to answer about the research methods, apparatus, and ethics. 4 hyphens/interstice: i admit that this process-article has an excessive use of the hyphen. however, each is considered and justified. truman (2021) discusses the hyphen as a ‘forced milieu’ where two entities, (equal in importance) are brought together to create a third, new entity which invokes different thinking. truman 4. meeting with posthuman, post-qualitative and feminist (new) materialism concepts as beings within my imagination, i enter a cosy pub, off a farmland lane in the countryside of england. inside, i have asked three friends to meet me, i am late to the party, but they are already present. chatting loudly, they call me over to join in with their conversation. i fear i have interrupted a lively debate, but they reassure me, grab me a drink and invite me to think and feel-through the research ideas with them. these trans-corporeal friends have connected from different places and spaces in time, to support and coach me through these research entanglements. they are each experienced scholars, academics, artists, philosophers, writers, theorists, and thinkers. they don’t assume they know the answers but are happy to guide me through with the right questions. as a collective ‘we’ (braidotti, 2019) there is interrogation of the methodological choices when undertaking posthuman, post qualitative, feminist (new) materialism enquiry into the experiences of teachers in prison education in england. this processarticle sits at an intersection of materiality, (using stitched creations and drawing to make-meaning) and abstractness (through the imagined conversations). these concepts as imagined beings are interrelated, fluid and porous, moving between states and understandings of one another; like the terms themselves, these imaginaries are characters who are entangled. there is no truth or untruth, when we look at philosophy, ethics and materialisms through spinoza’s thinking, the unreal merges with the real, we are all part of the same flux, our imagination therefore is also truth (dolphijn, 2021). i am not quite sure if these ‘beings’ are within me and / or of me.4 i am also unsure of how much the dialogue is my re-presentation of them and how much is not mine (i’m not quite sure that it matters). acknowledges that this must be done with consideration, and responsibility ensuring not to bring whiteness to spaces where it is not welcomed and invites us to: ‘affirm some hyphens and/or refuse some hyphens.’ (truman, 2021. p. 159). prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 9 5(1) i do, however, want to honour the concepts and their originators. i acknowledge that thinking and feelingwith these concepts the boundaries are blurred and that is how it should be. it can at times also be uncomfortable; a mêlée of knots unravelling. i am wanting to embody these affective feelings as material outcomes and have been stitching with the ideas as they form (see figure 2). stitch and weave will therefore become-agent in the research. the aim of this process-article is to make the emergent meaning – associated with the complex methodological and conceptual framework (deleuze & guattari, 1988), an abstract, non-human and existential fold. as the ‘beings’ share their perspectives, they will inevitably draw-in the threads of others (ettinger, 2015), and offer new ways to disentangle difficult concepts. encouraged by the work of jackson & mazzei (2012), i use deleuze & guattari’s (1988) process of ‘plugging in’ to philosophical concepts, to think-with the theories and see what questions arise. ‘our words… are never without the echoes of the voices of those whose difference we chose to write with’ (manning & massumi, 2016, viii). me: hey, thank you so much for coming, i really appreciate you giving me this time. ph (post humanism): it’s our pleasure. pq (post qualitative): i’m excited to hear about your research ideas fm (feminist [new] materialisms): yes, please sit down, be-with us, share your thinking and feeling. me: thank you, i want to use this approach to my methodology, but the study is situated within a prison and these, i fear, conflict. pq: why do you think that? me: as an education professional working within a prison setting, the ability for me to enact my personal values are challenged daily. this has led me to struggle when designing the methodology for research of teacher experience in a prison education setting. i often witness the conflict between the prison regime and the ambitions of education. whilst education has a ‘pedagogy of hope’ (freire, 1992), the prison regime is focused on security with physical boundaries, gates and walls which enforce this. for prisoners, the impact of this oppression is part of their punishment for a crime, however the impact of this oppressive force on the prison teacher experience has not fully been explored, i want to know if this has an impact on their pedagogy and praxis. the parallel here between this experience and that in academia is not lost. there are restrictions in the way i write, the way i research and present findings. post-qualitative, posthuman and feminist (new) materialism as concepts, challenge these academic norms – not least, as part of this process-article, but also as part of my wider enquiries and considerations. hopefully they can operate to release me from certain constraints that i feel both inside and outside of the prison. pq: okay, start from the beginning. how are you going to approach the research of these teacherparticipants and their non-human counterparts in the prison? me: firstly, i want to use a mobile method of walking interviews inside the prison boundaries, as i believe this method creates an embodied experience prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 10 5(1) (leigh & brown, 2021) and enable the teacherparticipants to move-with thought (springgay & truman, 2017). i’m asking participants to map their route beforehand, then, whilst walking together, the teacher-participants answer questions about their experiences as well as draw ‘things’ (considering thing-power from bennett, 2004) along the route. these things may be part of the story that each teacher-participant wants to tell; or, they may unlock imaginaries in relation to their experience. the drawings are used in phase 2 of the research involving a visual matrix, essentially, a focus group with the collective visual stimulus to enable affective thought, akin to photo-elicitation. evans and jones (2011) note the potential limitations of walking interviews, highlighting that walking could exclude some teachers with limited range of movement. this has been a concern for me as i do not want to have an ableist assumption that all can take part, that certainly does not align with this approach that foregrounds ethics. to alleviate this, i have given an alternative option to the walking interview should participants prefer that. pq: do you think you are challenging the normative systems of academia enough, are you interrupting the patriarchal, hegemonic foundations? in the words of deleuze and guattari, are you tracing or mapping? (deleuze & guattari, 1988). me: the walking interview with drawing is a material movement around the prison, it is a way to connect the embodiment of the space and to follow the lines of others, yet it also pushes against the prison (and academia) as a space of confinement and restriction to a space of creativity and connection. through this, we connect with the traces (see figure 3, traces of prisoners walking on the aerial view map) with the traces of the teachers at the centre of the enquiry, making new maps to redefine the prison space. the initial walking interview is normative to some extent in its method, but it is the intra-action (barad, 2007) as opposed to interaction that makes this different. intra-action according to barad (2007) recognises that agency is not owned by one single human but is an entanglement of other forces and ‘things’ which are always fluxing, changing, and diffracting. they are therefore inseparable from one another. in this way, there cannot be specific outcomes or measurements as these findings cannot be separated out from all that they are or will become. there are ‘minor gestures’ (manning, 2016) to move against the systems through taking these creative methods into the prison space. the visual and material outcomes of the enquiry are equally as important as the written ones; i take inspiration from erin manning and call on my intuition as a craft of research (bell & wilmott, 2020). i am using my textiles practice to further the creative play in the diffractive analysis of the phenomena creating something new on the map. the findings inform the creation of something visual, visceral, and new. fm: hmm, it sounds interesting, i love the idea of a textural approach. you have already pre-planned it all, won’t you leave some room to enable the process to become-with? me: perhaps, i need a sense of control, to know what is coming but also leaving some space to enable different ‘lines of flight’ (deleuze & guattari, 1988). i’ll be drawing on the material influence of the prison as a place that is transitional, liminal and boundaried. this sensory and corporeal method of walking for research connects participants to place and allows greater communication related to the perception of the space (o’neill & hubbard, 2010). conducting the interview within the prison, incites richer more prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 11 5(1) affective responses by being with-in the space or between spaces, perhaps the interruptions take us somewhere unplanned. the transcript of the walking interview, and the drawings then also, become agents in the assemblage (st. pierre, 2004). fm: who or what are you interviewing then? if you are all entangled? me: there is agency in the assemblage. although, i am only interviewing the teacher-participants, they share their experiences with me and in doing so, they share the texture of that assemblage, they are ‘plugged into’ all that is entangled inside and outside of the prison education rhizome (deleuze & guattari, 1987), but the teacher-participant is just one knot within a multiplicity of k-nots. by recognising the minutiae, i am recognising all the participants, human and non-human, through the teacher-participants’ accounts. the sharing of their interactions and associations allows me to see, what i can’t witness alone in that space. pq: what if we reject the interview as a humanistic approach in this study, can you defend its inclusion? is this intra-action then an intra-view? me: for me, i think it goes without saying, or perhaps it needs to be said that i would enable an affective approach to the interview and the walking method in some way does this. i’m not sure if it goes so far as to be an intra-view?5 teacher-participants receive the interview schedule beforehand to thinkthrough the questions prior to the walk. there is a consideration of the space and of the body; ensuring the walking interview is outside of the education buildings but still with-in the grounds of the prison, whilst the focus group is off-site, and online, to enable a change in tacit experiences. i am noting all the background noises, sounds, movements, and interruptions (warfield, 2017) in a more-than-transcript. however, if i consider the suggestions of kuntz & presnall (2012) then i need to take this further to include considerations of material entangled with the ethico-onto-epistem-ological 5 the term intra-view has been used in posthuman, post qualitative and feminist materialism discussions (barreiro & vroegindeweij, 2020) after barad’s idea of intra-action underpinnings of the research (barad, 2007). i find this particularly difficult when thinking of creating an interview schedule, for if i follow this suggestion, then there should not be a schedule at all, and further still no transcript (denzin, 2003). both barad (2007) and haraway (2016) use the term diffraction in contrast to reflection. diffraction in scientific terms, is when waves pass through an aperture, they bend and intra-act with each other. diffraction therefore attends to difference rather than sameness; noticing what differences matter and consideration of what is excluded from the ‘mattering’ (truman, 2019). the diffraction process enables a trans-corporeal attention using minutiae details of experience (taguchi, 2012) and with using stitch to explore this, i am taking the ‘diffraction-to surface’ (hancock, 2020, p.100). i am analysing the interviews and outcomes of the matrix through diffractive material methods, using textiles and imagery to make-meaning, but the power of holding a transcript, holding the words, is questionable, are the words mine to make meaning of? as kuntz and presnall (2012) suggest the findings are ‘in the intra-action between language and materiality, words themselves can be understood as bodies, affected and affecting’ (p. 735). fm: have the restrictions in the prison impacted the choice of your research methods? me: there is restriction, and it is the feel of that restriction that has led me to explore how this impacts the teacher-participants. the security aspects are an accepted interruption to the teachers’ daily classroom practice, but it is not known how this impacts their praxis. paradoxically, the human-rights of the prisoners means that involving them in the research is regretfully too complex and timeconsuming to gain ethical clearance and so this has also been an influence on the methods. ph: shouldn’t you stay with the trouble (barad, 2007) and embrace uncomfortableness? (christ, et al, 2021) which considers entangled multiple agencies, it was first used by nathalie sinclair. prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 12 5(1) me: i am not comfortable with leaving the prisoners out, but the emphasis of the study is on the experiences of teachers. to centre the prisoner voice, takes the foci away from the teacher. the prisoners are recognised as important agents in the research but not as actors. pq: tell us more about the focus group that you have termed a ‘visual matrix’ how does that connect to this methodology? me: i trace here the work of froggett, manley, and roy (2015) whose method entitled visual matrix, uses visual stimuli to explore shared experiences across different settings. it is termed an ‘affect-rich’ method; i am using selected imagery shown in the visual matrix to evoke emotional responses from participants. the method has a strict set of rules, by which the facilitator guides participants to share their ‘imaginaries,’ in this case in response to the collective drawings undertaken during the walking interviews. teacher-participants are spending time being with the matrix of images, forming their ‘imaginaries’ and taking turns to share their thinking. the term ‘imaginaries’ has flexible and evolving meaning here and has been used in social sciences to depict that society is not a given but exists because it is collectively imagined in that way (nerlich, 2015). in the matrix, the imaginaries shared by the participants, encourages them to ‘imagine’ a visual response or a different reality to their experiences of being a teacher in prison education, creating a tacit outcome. the originators of the method found that there were instances in the matrix where not all voices were heard. for this purpose, i have embedded the use of thinking environment values (kline, 2015) to ensure there is equality and ease in the space and all voices are heard. however, there is also recognition that this is very much an act of ‘feeling’ alongside thinking and the aim is to gain an affective response. pq: do you think this method goes far enough to be termed postqualitative? me: there cannot be a single definition of what a post-qualitative inquiry looks like, but kuntz (2021) explains that it should challenge the status quo, enabling difference and foregrounding ethical commitments. the space during the visual matrix is affirmative and equal, embracing textiles, drawing, theory, and philosophy. this method then becomes postqualitative. fm: why do you specifically want to explore the prison space and place in relation to teacher experience? me: a prison ‘is a space that differs – physically, temporally and emotionally’ (jewkes & laws, 2021, p. 395). the importance of place came to the fore when i moved from teaching in ‘mainstream’ further education to marginalised prison education. the architecture and spatial environment inevitably affects prisoners but there has not been any extensive exploration of this effect on teachers. the prison education space is a place of multiplicity. there are many complexities and contradictions within this. west (2022) as a teacher of philosophy in prisons, talks of the ‘absence of the general public’ in the prison space, as if they are ‘looking in the other direction’ (p. 5). he felt that prisons can often feel abandoned and neglected spaces, a place that is built for security not for education. yet for a prisoner, education spaces within prison can be seen as ‘free-places’ that are nonjudgemental and free from the power structures imposed by uniformed officers (jewkes & laws, 2021). furthermore, i have considered the impact of the prison space as a ‘total institution’ (goffman, 1961) which cannot escape the force and structure of the prison regime. foucault’s (1995) post structural perspectives on prisons as oppressors of docile bodies and his writing on the panoptical gaze is layered within the study. i am interested to know if teachers ‘feel’ this oppression from the constant surveillance within the prison, or if this becomes ‘ordinary’. these two perspectives enable me to see prison education spaces as third space (soja, 1998) however, there is trepidation from a feminist perspective to wholly rely on these theories, they nevertheless be utilised in the diffractive analysis of the findings. for a prison teacher, education can feel out-ofplace in prison regimes ‘the role of education within prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 13 5(1) the prison regime is at best peripheral’ (forster, 1998). the space therefore is transitional, with contradictory feelings. spaces may never be neutral, always relational and imbued with power (massey, 2005), therefore, the prison education space can never be a neutral ground. there is also the material, aesthetical aspect of this. the aerial photograph of the prison intrigues me, with over 1000 men being in that space and yet the image is empty (see figure 3), it brings to the fore the impact of human interruptions on the land, with evident traces of bodies walking. this vast structure is nestled amongst the landscape, purposefully concealed from human view by the surrounding walls and trees. humans then become the minutiae detail, become minoritarian, in relation to the land. it suggests zylinska’s (2014) ideas of minimal ethics for the anthropocene. in stitching with this ghostly image, i am adding to its narrative, sharing my story of experience from my first week inside this process maps the walking from one wing to another, exploring the territory as i learn jail-craft, it entangles with my morals and tests my values. ‘and the jail itself feels like a kind of limbo, a state of in-between, as during shift change when everyone freezes in place. you wonder how the birds skittering at the edges of hallways enter and exit these windowless spaces’ (cohen & dalke, 2019, p. 48). ph: are prisons more anthropocentric than other sites? how does this impact your posthuman methodologies? me: there are multiple paradoxes at play here, in the one sense a prison can be humanistic; encouraging education for rehabilitation, a humancentred approach, using this expanse of land for the purposes of improving both the prisoner life and that of the community on the outside. in this way it is the epitome of our current epoch in the anthropocene. humans always seek tranquillity, and the prison enables the public to carry on believing that the risk is managed through the high security environment. however, contradictions continue within the prison space. there is an assumption that prisoners are in this space because of their own doing, not because of societal problems, injustices, racial disparities, or mental health (jolliffe & haque, 2017). an additional complexity is that this is a local prison; where some men are on remand, yet to be sentenced. there is therefore a complex population including a range of lesser to serious convictions. there are also ‘vulnerable prisoners’, men who are further categorised and ‘marginalised from the margins’ (maguire, 2021). the juxtaposition of security and care has been noted by hamilton (2013) when exploring the etymology of the word securitas: ‘the word is transparent enough, featuring three distinct components: the prefix sē– (apart, aside, away from); the noun cura (care, concern, attention, worry); and the suffix-tas (denoting a condition or state of being). securitas, therefore, denotes a condition of being separated from care, a state wherein concerns, and worries have been put off to the side’ (hamilton, 2013, p. 5). the prison then, can also be seen as inhumane, with humans being stripped of their autonomy and agency, categorised, and monitored 24/7. i could consider uncomfortable concepts here of criminals being called ‘animals’ or ‘cold-blooded’ in the media, essentially dehumanising them (young, 2020). prisoners then, are part of the complex prison space, they are always, already present (ulmer, prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 14 5(1) 2017), bringing into that educational space all that they are entangled with, inside the prison and outside, past, present, and future, their families, their prior educational experiences, their feelings, and emotions, all imbricated. pq: is the study then rhizomatic? me: yes, i love this analogy from deleuze and guattari, the roots of the prison go deep, in every sense, the roots of prisoners’ connections, the professional relationships with teachers, the links to the outside/inside, building relationships, that are complex but encourage prisoners to seek their ‘lines of flight’ (deleuze & guattari, 1988). ph: lines of flight bullshit again, i need another drink. fm: it is a complex and complicated assemblage; it is not as simple as the binaries of inside / outside, human / non-human, nature / culture, abstract / concrete, or matter / mind (koro-ljungberg, et al. 2018). ph: the lines of flight analogy may be represented in nature but the roots you are talking about here, they are human, you are putting the human prisoner and teacher experiences at the fore, what about the others? me: the teacher-participants are drawing nonhuman objects and ‘things’ that may represent their experiences as prison teachers. the transcripts and memos note other agents and consider the impact of them on their experiences. is that not enough? ph: their experiences, you are privileging the human again. i just don’t think humans can change their viewpoint. me: i see, so how can i de-centre the human in my thinking? pq: perhaps you need to ‘cut into the center’ (jackson and mazzei, 2012). you shouldn’t be thinking of these as separate, they are all an agentic assemblage (jackson and mazzei, 2016). ‘posthumanism doesn’t presume the separateness of any-‘thing,’ let alone the alleged spatial, onto-logical, and epistemological distinction that sets humans apart’ (barad, 2007, p. 136). me: okay, so i already appreciate that when i walk with the participants, i am also walking with all the other entanglements, both human and non. it is a meshwork (ingold, 2011). ph: yes! the experiences you have had in the prison, the fact that you have chosen these methods, the philosophy, artistic and material influences, the participants (all of them, human and not) of course, and every minutiae aspect of that walk will be entangled and equally important. ‘the studies phenomenon is thus not something that exists “in itself” but arises or is created in an uninterrupted relationship to the constructed research apparatus’ (gunnarsson and bodén, 2021, p. 18, my translation). me: i agree, the minutiae are important to me, those experiences in the margins, in the periphery, the walks between education and the wings, the background noises, the climate, the cold touch of metal, the glances, they are all equally important to the study. this is what duchamp (in de duve, 1991) calls the infrathin, which is concerned with the ‘backgrounded’ objects, sounds, feelings, or encounters which still have an impact. fm: how will you re-present this in your research approach? me: the french term for knot is nœud, using language and writing as thinking; the term in french further exemplifies the meaning. the french pronunciation mimics the english word ‘new’, reemphasising a newness and the œ ligature, of the two letters linked together substantiates denotation. using my neologism, the information i collect becomes da-nœud-ta rather than data. a knot has multiplicity; it can be tangled or stuck unintentionally, or it can have functional intentionality, holding objects together. in this context the da-nœud-ta can have this same multiplicity. ‘it matters what knots knot knots’ (haraway, 2016. p. 2). fm: why do you think knots feature in your work so prominently? me: knots are the visual and material representation of the complexities i face here. my leaning towards material, textural outcomes is connected to my textiles background and when prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 15 5(1) exploring these ideas, the term appears again and again, in the ‘string figures’ of barad (2007), deleuze and guattari’s (1988) nodes of a rhizome, the concept of ‘and, and, and’ or ‘et, et, et’ in french, using the ampersand in replace of this, also forms multiple knots; &, &, &. guyotte, et al. (2022) use language and writing to explore nots and (k)nots. the elements that are ‘not’ in the research yet are still entangled. for this study it includes teachers and prisoners not having agency, prisoners not wanting to engage, the prison regime not working for education aims. additionally, i can think of the research as not being about gender, not being about race and not being about the prisoners, but of course it is all these things, (k)notted within. ringrose, et al. (2018) reference the knot when discussing evidence of a shift in educational research to a phematerialist perspective. ‘each article is not a unit but rather a knot or a partial exploration, which unearths a unique entanglement’ (ringrose, et al. 2018, p. 4). i am using knots to embody the findings as material affective textures or diffractive knots / nœuds. the entanglement is part of its beauty, the danœud-ta form is only created because of the messiness. ph: do you think anyone is missing from this conversation about your proposed research and approaches? me: whilst i am not undertaking a participatory approach, to ‘do’ this research is to include all that are involved, and so, yes, perhaps teacher-participants should also be in this discussion. i have asked you to be here, but there are many other concepts that are also in this matrix of thinking, artists such as ettinger and manning, other philosophers and thinkers that don’t fall neatly into the posthuman fold. the readers, reading this now. but where do i stop? if i am to include all that are involved, do i include the thoughts of other agents and the non-human ‘things’ (bennett, 2004) in this discussion? fm: you want to decentre humanism and whiteness, ensuring ethical consideration of indigenous and intersectional communities. how are you planning to achieve this in your research? me: this is difficult as the prison is such a white male dominated space and i, as researcher am white, in a position of privilege. but i must stay with that difficulty, to acknowledge my position. the citations here already intentionally foreground female perspectives but need to go further to move beyond dichotomies of ‘western’ thought without it being an ‘inclusionary gesture’ (springgay & truman, 2019). there must be consideration of materialisms used in the research such as land, maps, lines, walking, and textiles, all of which first appeared in indigenous philosophical thinking, where messiness is embraced (ellingson & sotirin, 2020). it is not enough to simply say i am using feminist (new) materialism without enacting it. the absence of queer, trans, black, indigenous, and people of colour (qtbipoc) representation in the teacherparticipants becomes an agent itself within the research (springgay & truman, 2019). i am already trying to resist ‘normative’ eurocentric writing approaches, which favour text above illustration or craft. i am taking this further in the research praxis, respecting and recognising the indigenous wisdom of more-than human agency, that has existed for thousands of years prior to contemporary philosophy (rosiek, et al., 2020). it can be uncomfortable to open ourselves to a wider range of knowledges that do not follow the usual ways of knowing, but to ‘be’ with these concepts is to stay prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 16 5(1) with the discomfort and acknowledge ‘others’ who have been dismissed. ‘dislodging anthropocentric vortexes of ‘human-asthe-reference-point’ and acknowledging the dynamic and complex relationality of posthuman and indigenist ways of knowing’ (cutter-mackenzieknowles, et al., 2020, p. 106). i am acknowledging that these ways of knowing have been around long before any of these theories and taking the time to recognise space from an indigenous perspective. yunkaporta (2019) explains that ‘time and place are usually the same word in aboriginal languages — the two are indivisible’ (p. 66), this is an interesting concept to apply within a prison context. cutter-mackenzie-knowles, et al. (2020) use ‘tracing-with’ as a walking method, they hold charcoal to the page as they walk to trace the ‘theory knot’ staying-with a bird trace, they follow a magpie (see figure 5). pq: there is a thread running through this research, where has this come from? me: threads, paths, traces, these are the common features of this story, the use of the walking interviews, and the corresponding maps have brought the feature of lines into this work. ingold’s (2016) history of lines brings these concepts together, he discusses how lines can be boundaries in which we are contained but also paths connected to places, that cannot exist without the paths for people to come and go (entangled in figure 6). ‘proceeding along a path, every inhabitant lays a trail. where inhabitants meet, trails are entwined, as the life of each becomes bound up with the other. every entwining is a knot, and the more that lifelines are entwined, the greater the density of the knot’ (ingold, 2011) the grid is another visual metaphor here that features lines, margins, and peripheries. the visual manifestation of the story has both order and disorder, with boundaries, walls and gutters on the surface and rhizomes, threads, and knots beneath. the layers of this story, the knots that the teachers experience in prisons cannot be articulated just through dialogue or the written word, but can perhaps be re-presented through craft and art. ph: who else is in your entanglement, outside of philosophy and the education-prison fold? me: i have been influenced by the work of georges perec (1999) and his 1974 book ‘species of spaces and other pieces’, in the book, he describes his surroundings, starting with the smallest of spaces and working outwards, noticing the minutiae detail of the mundane and everyday world. i want to explore this within the more-than transcript. i am noticing the details of the walking interviews and focus group. in a similar vein to posthumanism, perec (1999) asks us to notice ‘com-mon things [...] from the dross in which they remain mired’, and to animate them to ‘speak of what is, of what we are’ (p. 210). it is through perec’s geographies that i am embodying the walking interview whilst noticing and drawing ‘things’ that we encounter, recognising their ‘thing-power’ (bennett, 2004). chosen by the teacher-participant, these textures of the prison landscape then speaks about the place. it will be interesting to see if the participants notice the same objects/subjects and if they view the prison from thsame plane. also, if this activity enables the participants to see the place ‘anew’ to reduce the habitual and defamiliarize. joanne lee (in forsdick et al, 2019) takes perec’s instructions to her daily commute in sheffield, taking black and white photographs to ‘see more flatly’ the infra-ordinary of her 12-minute journey (see figure 7). i also take influence from perec in developing the interview ‘schedule’, reminding teacher-participants to re-notice, think-through and talk-through all the matterings. prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 17 5(1) ‘make an effort to exhaust the subject, even if that seems grotesque, or pointless, or stupid. you still haven’t looked at anything, you’ve merely picked out what you long ago picked out’ (perec, 1999. p. 50). fm: how are geographies part of this meshwork? i am interested in a geographical sub-discipline named carceral geography which explores places and spaces of incarceration (moran, 2013; turner, 2016). ‘the prison, put simply, is a technique of borderingof creating a defined pocket of space-set out by the state’ (turner, 2016, p. 31). this discipline recognises that boundaries and borders can be variable, exploring liminal spaces between inside and outside. by looking at prisons through a geographical lens, we are making visible that which is normally cloaked, questioning the notion of binaries such as inside/outside, and recognising that a carceral space has ‘boundary traffic’ (moran, 2013) which could include teachers who can transgress the space. ph: what other agents do you think are entangled in your space/time/matter (barad, 2007)? me: there are certain ‘things’ that i want to give agency to in this research; there are also so many subjects and objects present inside and out of the prison that should also be considered as agents (bennett, 2004). the prisoners, their convictions, the locks the gates the birds of prey held captive at the prison, the birds that fly free overhead, the bees in the prison hives, the absence of technology, conditioning, time, the absence of mothers, childhood memories, teachers as matriarchy, patriarchal order, segregation, covid, violence, injustice, government policy, privilege, oppression, roots/routes, utterances, prison officers, the words that the teacher-participants don’t say, &, &, &. how can i think for them all? ph: it is not your privilege to give these things agency, they were ‘always-already present’ (ulmer, 2017) and entangled in this inquiry and so by being so, they have agency (barad, 2007). if you were to anthropomorphise these non-human entities and ‘things’, what do you think they would tell you about the experiences of teachers in prisons? me: of course, it is important for me to remember that agency exists before me. there are so many things that are entangled, i want to ensure their voices are heard and i feel the way to do that is to speak and listen with the teacher-participants, who can tell me their interpretation of experiences, to give me a greater sense of the entire place, and the vibrancy of matter (springgay & truman, 2017). ph: it seems that these ‘things’ can be considered then as ‘serious agents and co-constructers’ (braidotti, 2019, p. 111) of your thinking, so, what would they tell you about the place? me: they would tell me that the sky is blue, and the wind is cold. fm: how will you analyse your da-nœudta compiled from the walking interviews and the visual matrix? me: this is a challenge, to resist the normative expectations of analysis, and still create something acceptable as empirical evidence. afterall the philosophical concepts i draw on here from foucault and deleuze guattarian thinking, resist method, they are deliberately ‘anti-method’ (st pierre, 2021) it is difficult to know what is the ‘right’ or good thing to do. prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 18 5(1) st pierre (2021) suggests that post-qualitative inquiry is ‘immanent’ it doesn’t yet exist until it is created or invented by the researcher. i have chosen then to transcribe; although i worry that in doing this i am losing much of the feeling of the intra-action. i have thought then to make a more-than-transcript which includes all the minutiae, embedding audio clips of background noises which capture far more than a reductionist transcript can. i am becomingwith the transcript, using creative outcomes of memos, stitch, knots and weaving to tie up the loose threads. this therefore adheres somewhat to academic norms and encapsulates the ‘data’ but still allowing for opportunity in a diffractive analytic approach (barad, 2007; haraway, 1997). the theme of the matrix as a bounded, grided entity is a visual representation of the concepts here. the transcripts themselves are re-formed as art pieces, created with notes and memos in the margins, collating my thoughts, interruptions, and considerations. the teacher-participants are invited to add to these transcripts after the event. once complete, they are worked over with stitch, particularly using knots and weaving to entangle the findings, taking inspiration from the drawings and maps of the walking interviews. these material interactions allow an embodied engagement, and a further intra-action (barad, 2007) to create da-nœudta. ph: how do you know where and when to make ‘agential cuts?’ me: i don’t think i do know it, but l feel it. recognising the agencies and bringing them to the fore, is a diffraction and a ‘cut’ together-with (barad, 2007) and within the phenomena. it isn’t me that ‘wields the knife’ it is the wider entanglement of the da-nœud-ta. the slicing of data for thematic analysis is in the same way can be seen as incarceration of the data, whilst i want to set it free. not one single entity will take precedence over the other.6 6 thank you to the reviewer for this enlightened idea and for your affirmative and supportive care in the review of ‘agential cuts do not mark some absolute separation but a cutting together/apart – "holding together" of the disparate itself.’ (barad, 2012, p. 46) pq: how will you articulate this in normative academic language? can you practice posthumanism research and break free from the humanistic, hegemonic, and cartesian academic institutions you sit within? me: as discussed, i am keen to escape the normative structures of academia and the positivist, limiting binaries (st. pierre, 1997) but there is fear here about rejection from the institutions i want to belong. i am drawn to my background in the arts and the concept of ‘negative space’ which links with the erasure i mentioned earlier. the potential of what is not said in interviews, the in-and-between, this space is a crucial aesthetic requirement to balance out a picture and give whole meaning. i trace here the work of koro-ljungberg, et al. (2018) who explore the notion of data as a negative of typical data. here the data will recognise the silences, intra-actions, the spaces in between. this performative act is then becoming-with the transcript, it becomes matter, a non-human agent in this entanglement and so, it begins again. the use of the drawings in the visual matrix allows these images of non-human participants to enter the dialogue as metaphors. the imaginaries that follow this, further the enquiry beyond an interview process to an embodied experience that both analyses and creates new shared knowledge. the da-nœud-ta then becomes-with through the power of the researcher as agent. i don’t think i have to conform. it would be easier to follow neoliberal, logocentric expectations of academia. but, if i want to ensure this research reaches the people it may help, then i can be more creative in my output, i can ensure that the ‘findings’ can be accessed by more than just the ‘elite few’ (strom, 2018). this process-article, a process i feel we have been through together. prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 19 5(1) ‘it matters to destabilize worlds of thinking with other worlds of thinking. it matters to be less parochial’ (haraway, 2016). fm: what are you fearful of? me: i think what i am coming to notice in this process-article is that i am fearful of making mistakes when representing this multifaceted approach but that the making of mistakes and trying of new phenomena is exactly what the approach is about. as mazzei & mccoy (2010) state ‘error becomes the limit’ (p. 505). fm: do you think you are right to take a ‘creative’ approach? are you centering yourself and your textile practice here instead of the participant or research needs? me: i have felt fears of being egocentric throughout the design of this research. i have felt egocentric in the doing of a doctorate, and ‘using’ the prison, with me as a ‘prison tourist’ new to this space. however, in harnessing my textural-rich language to explore the phenomenon, i know i am staying true to my values and the greater consideration of all those involved. perhaps i am centering myself here and i must ensure that whilst i am self-aware of my entanglements, i do not allow that to ‘slip into selfabsorption’ (jewkes, 2014). pq: what is making you uncomfortable about your research design? me: my privilege, my whiteness, my power and how to acknowledge those and invite others into the knots and folds without thinking for them. in fact, it is that i am not uncomfortable enough. i am concerned that whilst this approach does not follow standard academic norms, it may not push against the systems enough. not just the academic system here but greater systems of the prison, the government, and public opinion. ethical considerations that hugely impact my story and that of the teachers, and the prisoners but of which i am scared to break open. i draw from braidotti here, ‘the nomadic lines of flight of minor sciences cut across, reterritorialize and recompose the dominant knowledge production systems precisely through creating multiple missing links, opening generative cracks, and visiting marginal spaces’ (braidotti, 2019, p. 127). fm: are you worried about opening the cracks? me: yes, because then i am confronting my own fears, the worry of really recognising the entanglements. the knots that i am scared to unfurl. the unspoken entities of prison teaching; the acknowledgement of facing humanity and all it has to offer. if i open the cracks to these conversations with teachers, there are ethical concerns and emotional fragilities that i need to navigate. 5. conclusion the bell echoes for last orders and we take the empty glasses to the bar, we thank each other for an affirmative experience and dissipate into a ‘1000 tiny relations’ (lather, 2015). i have shared with you my vulnerabilities within this messy research process as an early career researcher working in a prison space, on the periphery of academia. the article as a process has enabled many questions to arise about the research methodology and in doing so, it has become part of the approach itself. ‘after all, the (k)not is not finished; we expect its boundaries cannot be known’ (guyotte, et al, 2022, p. 21). i invite you to tie up some of these loose ends or unravel further in this shared space: i am nervous at the difference of this processarticle, of its rejection and its marginalisation. however, i can say that i was true to my intentions to create something new and to share that newness in the textures with other researchers who may be navigating similar complexities. i seek to find my prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 20 5(1) confidence in the words of st. pierre (2021) who tells me: ‘it’s your turn, so dig in, go deep, get that expertise and confidence, and do outstanding work. we’ll be happy to help you’. 6. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 7. acknowledgements i would like to acknowledge the affirmative and caring support given from the editors, most notably the time given by dr judith enriquez who met with me to develop this paper and is now part of this entanglement. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism (2023) harding (2023) prism 21 5(1) 9. references barad, k. 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https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/11/25/we-are-less-likely-to-dehumanise-prisoners-who-are-approaching-the-end-of-their-sentence/ prism journal prism volume 3. issue 1 (2020) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 99 © 2020 prism, issn: 2514-5347 paper-work: what documents have to say about assessment practices judith enriquez school of education, liverpool john moores university, liverpool, uk (j.g.enriquez@ljmu.ac.uk) received: 02/06/2020 accepted for publication: 24/07/2020 published: 04/09/2020 abstract documents are usually circulated as carriers of transparent information. they can serve as evidence of accountability. in fact, they embody the most desired value of managerialism, where the culture of audit and compliance is fully served and delivered in written and textual form. this article explores assessment by attending to its principal instrument – the document – through which it is organised, monitored and implemented in higher education. it is an invitation to ‘see’ what documents, such as, module guides, ‘do’ for universities and the assessment practices of academics. under close scrutiny, documents ‘do’ more than record and transfer information. their associated paper-work expresses and reproduces norms, patterns of thoughts and work habits that are accepted and assumed to be shared in the prevailing outcome-based assessment systems of higher education. this article provides a critical account based on practice-oriented and material-semiotic approaches to assessment. it bears witness to the past and persistent norms and standards that are shaped by documents, paper-work, control, compliance and surveillance and less by pedagogical and student engagement. keywords: social practice; document analysis; outcome-based assessment; bloom's taxonomy; intended learning outcomes 1. introduction assessment in higher education (he) fulfils functions of certification on the one hand, and accountability for raising standards on the other. it is employed as a mechanism of transparency for external quality assurance based on a techno-rationalist perspective and positivist model of academic standards (bloxham 2012; bloxham and boyd 2012; bloxham, boyd and orr, 2011). this has been a dominant approach (filer, 2000; orr, 2005), which, unfortunately, has limited the goal of assessment to monitoring measurable outcomes that are quite contrary to the daily realities of teaching and learning. consequently, assessment has become a socially decontextualized practice (bloxham, 2009; broadfoot and black, 2004; orr, 2005) and a mechanism of self and peer surveillance (ecclestone 1999a; 1999b). most recently, it has increasingly been conditioned and driven by the feedback factor of national student surveys and the general discourse on student engagement. consequently, assessment as a social practice remains under-examined (filer 2000; boud, et https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:j.g.enriquez@ljmu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3868-1003 prism enriquez (2020) prism 100 3(1) al. 2018). this article intends to contribute to this lack of practice-based research by paying attention more closely to the vital role of documents and their material performativity. the fact that this remains relatively underexplored is surprising given the pivotal role that documents play as part of quality reviews and assessment practices. undeniably, assessment is largely a written practice. in fact, instruction and certification would cease to exist without documents. assessment is unthinkable and not feasible without documents: moderation reports, marking criteria, programme descriptors, and written feedback. moderation activities need to be documented in order to demonstrate to external examiners that the marking process was conducted with objective and transparent scrutiny; this process is also geared towards ensuring comparability of academic standards with other uk institutions. thus, the practice of assessment becomes formal or official to the extent that it is documented, circulated and examined. in a variety of ways, documents ‘keep in order’ practices. in fact, assessment practices are characterised and structured by the accumulation of written records as a way of quantifying and verifying organisational quality assurance (freeman and maybin, 2011). in short, assessment is almost always done on and with paper. it is this paper-work, the material force of assessment practices that i would like to shine a light on. to initiate and establish the role of the document materiality and its performative energy in assessment practice, i draw from an array of disciplinary strands that have influenced my own writings in the academic work that i have been doing. these include the fields of science and technology studies (sts), in particular actor-network theory (latour, 2005; law, 2009), non-representational theory (thrift, 2008), organisation studies (orlikowski and yates, 1994; 2002) and information and communication studies (allen-robertson, 2017; drucker, 2013), including the notion of intertextuality from contemporary literary criticism. assessment as a product of measurement and transparency on the one hand, and mechanism of managerialism in universities on the other, undermines its everyday practice and silences the power relations inherent to its ’paper-work’. it plays a vital role in the performativity of routines, that is, of constant reporting and recording; in short, the mapping and documentation of he practices. as such, there are implicit assumptions and decisions contained in the documents (and documentation processes) where the standards and levels of activities are concerned; not least, the expectation – indeed requirement – that academic staff and students comply. documents are circulated and used as carriers of transparent information. as message carriers, they have the capacity and power to dictate and determine actions and instill particular views. in a performative regime, they are fabrications that institutions produce based upon one or more versions of representations that are written into existence as performative texts (ball, 2003). in short, documents are able to extend the scope and reach of command and standardisation, making it possible to direct action over time and at a distance (freeman and maybin, 2011). the paper-work associated with documents serves not only as a medium for passive-aggressive bureaucratic practices, but also as a source of scapegoating for administrative control and performative compliance. over time and for the sake of compliance, paper-work becomes a ritual of ‘opaque transparency’ (orr, 2005), and conventional normality. this positivist, rationalist function of documents determines the terms of engagement for teaching and learning, student engagement and student-staff relations. such doings undermine the very standards that assessment tries to uphold and the studentcentredness that outcome-based assessment claims to promote. this article is an invitation to pause and look closely at assessment and confront its documents. it is not only text and language that ‘stand in’ for the corporate consensus of the institution; the document as an auditable act of performativity also enshrines and inscribes this. it becomes and produces an evidence trail of accountability. in fact, the document in this sense embodies the most desired value of managerialism, where the culture of audit and compliance is fully served and delivered in written and textual form. prism enriquez (2020) prism 101 3(1) 2. documenting assessment practices to examine the material performativity of documents, two key elements that dictate the design and standards of assessment are revisited: bloom’s taxonomy and intended learning outcomes. the highly varied and fluid realities of assessment are made durable, fixed and circulated; more importantly, they are rendered transparent through the application of bloom’s taxonomy, in what are ultimately levelled and de-politicised documents – in this case, module guides or syllabi. i had no success in locating research that has in fact explored and probed how the judgements made in relation to marking, moderating and external examining are affected by bloom’s taxonomy and intended learning outcomes. therefore, it is a rather pressing matter that we attend to the documentation associated with assessment. we cannot simply understand assessment without critiquing its documentary framework. as such, documents ‘are treated as sources of authority and compliance, they are treated as carriers or vehicles of messages, communicating or reflecting official intentions, objectives, commitments, proposals, ‘thinking’, ideology and responses to external events’ (freeman and maybin, 2011, p. 157). they ‘do’ things too. to this end, this article intends to contribute to the re-framing of assessment as social practice by examining the documentary realities that frame and regulate assessment practices. practice is theorised with three main elements – norms, conventions and routines. documents express and reproduce norms, patterns of thought, work habits and standards. because their ordering effects are ordinarily hidden, usually accepted not discussed or explicitly communicated – even, and perhaps especially, to those who express them – they must be drawn out by detailed interpretation. in addition, the performativity of assessment is further analysed through document materiality. by this i mean, documents are analytically considered not only as mediators and vehicles of discipline and bureaucracy (hull, 2012), but also as material objects that are constitutive in performing assessment practices. this matter is elaborated in the next section. furthermore, the article is a reminder of the popular and persistent inscriptions of assessment documents that have significantly structured and influenced institutional norms without much critical reflection and inquiry. studying the paper-work of assessment in its material specificity draws attention to the doings of documents and challenges the inscriptions, (that is, scripts of standards, conventions and routines) that it circulates. the document analysis i employ here focuses on what is made to ‘matter more’ – the ‘paper-work’ that has somehow afforded primacy over practiceoriented sensibilities. analysis includes a close reading of the documents themselves, but also include developing and understanding the ways in which documents refer to other documents as they are authored, produced, used and consumed. here intertextuality is useful in alerting us to the fact that documents are usually part of a network or system of relations. documents circulate through organisational hierarchies, programmes, teaching sessions, and assessment practices. in doing so, they actively construct those practices, networks and organisations. taking up lead from organisation studies, document analysis, in this regard, is not just interested in content analysis or in reading descriptions and inscriptions and applying a constant comparison method to derive textual categories or themes. more importantly, it is concerned with what purpose is being served (orlikowski and yates, 1994; 2002). in the discussion that follows here, i simply claim that if we are interested in understanding the historical roots of specific concerns, dominant conceptions and governing conditions that potentially constrain innovative and alternative assessment practices, then we must pay attention to what is being done with documents and how assessment is presented through documents. document analysis allows us to probe hegemonic and taken-for-granted assessment practices and uncover unintended realities by focusing on the role documents play in the much-desired transparency and accountability of quality assurance and control. documents as qualitative sources of knowledge have predominantly been framed as ‘vessels of content’, rather than as material objects in use (coffey, 2014; prior, 2008). re-framing documents as ‘vehicles of action’ as well in their own right would allow us to take into account and to act upon the consequences of their prism enriquez (2020) prism 102 3(1) prescribed function or intent. in this case, what are we doing with our module guides or syllabi when their documentation enacts bloom’s taxonomy and the intended learning outcome or educational initiative? 3. documents as material objects documents are not merely representational artefacts. more importantly, they express and reproduce norms and patterns of work set by relations of power between institutional and social actors. yet, although they attend closely to the requirements and structure of assessment, they say little about the work of documenting itself, except that standards are applied and met. documents play significant roles in organisations and yet their realities are usually omitted in institutional inquiry or educational practice (atkinson and coffey, 2011). in fact, they promote particular educational ideologies and values and establish what norms and conventions must be followed. how documents of assessment work to assemble a putative reality is considered in more detail here, through the document analysis of 53 module guides – inclusive of one particular university’s curriculum design guide, and its related programme handbooks. all of the module guides within two particular degree programmes have a basic generic outline, which follows a prescribed university template. using the template is an institutional requirement. a module guide must contain teaching staff information and a syllabus which includes an outline of the module content, the aims and the learning outcomes of the module. the guides must also include a timetable of sessions as well as assessment details and submission, including feedback, dates. the guides conclude with a list of essential and recommended references or resources. learning outcomes in all of the guides apply bloom’s taxonomy. this link to bloom is explicitly found in the curriculum design guide of the university, where it was suggested that modules must refer to the adaptations of bloom’s taxonomy (i.e., anderson and krathwohl’s [2001] revised bloom’s taxonomy) when creating the learning outcomes for each module. furthermore, the influence of john bigg’s (1996) constructive alignment concept was evident in the formulation of learning outcomes. at this juncture, i ask the reader to trust the work that i have done here. i would like to relocate my own ‘paper-work’ away from our default mode of thinking and framing the representation of what research should look or read like and momentarily suspend the either/or mental construct of what its representation should include or exclude. i am fully aware that i have made a deep cut into the psyche of curriculum development practice, best practice and what seems to be foundational to teacher education programmes and he practices. i would not make such a deliberate act without evidence to back me up. however, the intent does not go as far as to ‘name and identify’ those involved that could easily be revealed by the documents i have exposed in this work. to fully detail the descriptions and content of the data that support the key claims of this article is to ‘point fingers’ to those behind the documents and i would not do that. the documents involved (e.g., module guides, programmes, assessment criteria, marking grids) are entangled with specific people. inevitably, the ethics of this work must be upheld by not making explicit the structural elements of a ‘proper’ research article, with introduction, method, analysis, discussion (or combined analysis/discussion section), conclusion sections. i do disappoint with good intentions and what matters more is the work that has been done by the documents and not so much who they represent or how many. we use documents to account for ourselves and what we do – to comply, to evidence, to justify and record. and yet, there is often little or no mention of the documentary realities of social practices even though document studies do have a long historical foundation within social science through the works of foucault and bourdieu (coffey, 2014). the paper-work and documentary realities of assessment are explored by paying close attention to the unintended and yet repeatedly choreographed practices with documents. to facilitate a documentary intent, law’s (2009) argument about collateral realities is enacted to draw attention to documents-at-work in the following ways: first, attend to practices. look to see what is being done. in particular, attend empirically to prism enriquez (2020) prism 103 3(1) how it is being done: how the relations are being assembled and ordered to produce objects, subjects, and appropriate locations. second, wash away the assumption that there is a reality out there beyond practice that is independent, definite, singular, coherent, and prior to that practice. ask, instead, how it is that such a world is done in practice, and how it manages to hold steady. third, ask how this process works to delete the way in which this sense of a definite exterior world is being done, to wash away the practices and turn representations into windows on the world. four, remember that wherever you look whether this is a meeting hall, a talk, a laboratory, or a survey, there is no escape from practice. it is practised all the way down, contested or otherwise. five, look for the gaps, the aporias and the tensions between the practices and their realities – for if you go looking for differences you will discover them (law, 2009, 12, underlined text in the original). i further argue in support of pinch (2008), who states that ‘[t]he social world is a world built of things, social action is through and through mediated by materiality, and social theory will remain impoverished unless it addresses this materiality’ (pinch, 2008, p. 479). materiality plays an important role in the institutions and infrastructures that develop around them. material objects carry assumptions and expectations about behavioural patterns from situation to situation, from home to workplace and from students to teachers. this is quite evident with the ‘work from home’ arrangement that the covid-19 crisis has singlehandedly orchestrated during lockdown. if we extend ‘affordance’ to documents as objects from which we can derive meaning through their use, we can see how the evidentiary nature of the document arises from the confluence of material form and social interpretation (allen-robertson 2017). in short, the performative materiality of documents should not be solely analysed based on its content, but also by its acts. using insights from sts and non-representational approaches, the document analysis put to work here attends to the making of assessment as it becomes assembled materially and semiotically, as part of a particular set of relations (e.g., lesson, module, course, programme). documents as material objects don’t represent, they perform. the emphasis on understanding documents as constitutive, rather than representational, forces us to look at them, to see how they work (drucker, 2013). thus, the overarching question or line of inquiry for the paper-work of assessment is: what gets done for learning to occur? by ‘seeing’ the work being done by intended learning outcomes, and verbs like ‘describe’, ‘analyse’ and ‘critically discuss’ based on bloom’s taxonomy in module guides. it proceeds by making the ‘paper-work’ of documents visible and placing under close scrutiny the ‘common sense’ understanding that has been maintained by and in documents. there is a need to suspend and resist institutional tendencies, temptations or even individual conveniences that treat module guides as transparent, self-evident and fully sensible documents or standard text. they simply are not as discussed in the following sections. documents are both producers and products of practice through repetition and coordination. and for this reason, law (2009) argues, they promote and maintain particular realities and not others. if documents or texts, including other representations or things, do realities in practice, then as such, they could be done differently or in more than one way. hence, the ‘paper-work’ of assessment engages in various processes, including selection, juxtaposition, deletion, ranking and framing. all of which create patterns of assessment through repeated practice. for instance, since the rise of outcome-based assessment, bloom’s taxonomy and verb-driven learning outcomes have become conventions selected and juxtaposed in national degree standards and systems of external examiners. how pre-determined outcomes in module guides come to matter more than the emergent realities of what is learned and could be assessed should be more critically considered. in the following sections, the article elaborates on bloom’s taxonomy, intended learning outcomes and the use of ‘critically’ in module guides to restore analytically the ‘collateral realities’ (law, 2009) of documents, and to look at them rather than through them (kafka, 2012). the assessment elements are not prism enriquez (2020) prism 104 3(1) neutral purveyors of written text. instead, they are and must be treated as mediators that shape their inscriptions and their relations with the subjects and objects they refer to (hull, 2012). i provide a practicebased perspective on assessment whereby documents participate and to some extent dictate the learning, which is repetitively or routinely reduced to mechanistic and instrumentalist criteria and categories of higher-order thinking skills. 4. bloom’s taxonomy one of the most important and influential works of more than half a century continues to do at least two things. first, it eliminates the social aspects of learning; and secondly, it defines learning outcomes as individual goals in behavioural terms. this is none other than taxonomy of educational objectives, the classification of educational goals, handbook 1: cognitive domain, edited by benjamin bloom and published in 1956. it is commonly known as ‘bloom’s taxonomy’, a six-tiered approach to the classification of intellectual expectations. it was a collective product of the collaborative effort of thirty-four educators, psychologists, and school examiners. it is often overlooked or forgotten that it was part of the threepart system of cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. the second handbook on affective domain was published in 1964. the committee never did publish a handbook for the psychomotor domain despite various attempts. let us be reminded here that bloom’s taxonomy was and is still is a guide that focuses solely on the cognitive domain of learning, and assumes that learning can be compartmentalised. as such, booker (2007) points out, its aim was to provide a generic classification system for test questions to meet broader educational goals and measurements. the use of bloom’s taxonomy as a way to view, develop and evaluate learning objectives is well established. for more than half a century, educators have turned to bloom’s taxonomy to provide the language or more specifically, the appropriate verbs for educational levels, such as, ‘identify’ for first-year (freshman) level, for intended learning outcomes that could be in theory behaviourally measured. the taxonomy though has been revised ever since (see anderson and krathwohl, 2001; krathwohl, 2002; marzano, 2000) and alternative taxonomies have been on offer, such as hauenstein (1998) holistic taxonomy; fink’s (2013) taxonomy of significant learning; and biggs’ (1996) structure of observed learning outcome (solo) taxonomy. none of these, though adapted to various disciplines and programme or course levels, have overtaken or diminished the demand for bloom’s taxonomy. it remains to be the dominant framework for classifying, categorising and defining programme aims and intended learning outcomes appropriate to educational levels. this article does not necessarily suggest that learning objectives in the original work of bloom and his colleagues are the same as learning outcomes (see harden 2002 for a more elaborate discussion). suffice to say that bloom’s taxonomy has survived various educational shifts from behaviourism to constructivism and from a focus on learning content to student learning outcomes. amidst these educational shifts and turns, curriculum developers, advisors, and evaluators have continued to use the taxonomy as a method of mapping the progression of student learning within programmes of study. undeniably, bloom’s taxonomy has been a key document for exercising transparency in articulating the scope and level of intended learning outcomes beyond subject-matter content items in ‘measurable’ terms. however, the collateral (unintended) reality of this, on the same token, is that it limits knowledge to such items of content within a view that the mind is a ‘mental filing cabinet’ (bereiter and scardamalia, 1998; 2005), where knowledge could be stored and retrieved for higher-order thinking skills. ultimately, it perpetuates and promotes the view that learning is a product. surely, such a suggestion is objectionable given the sophistication and advancement of educational theories and approaches. bloom’s taxonomy has insisted that the cognitive domain matters more and institutions and academics have complied in practice. furthermore, assessment-related documents, such as curriculum guides, code of practice for quality assurance, programme handbooks, where we find bloom’s taxonomy at work in complete circulation in educational systems, have been a ‘perfect fit’ for the marketised view of education. having said this, it needs to be emphasised that learning as product prism enriquez (2020) prism 105 3(1) was the dominant mindset long before the rise of neoliberal agenda for education (hager, 2004). with the help of bloom’s taxonomy, ‘the learningas-product view has remained very resilient. it is as though formal education systems have never got beyond a mass production mindset reminiscent of the industrial era’ (hager, 2004, p. 6). this framing puts the focus of assessment on products of learning. in so doing, the formulation of learning outcomes deflects attention from the process aspects or practices of learning. in encouraging the spread of the taxonomy and associated verbs: programmes, documents for quality and compliance have uncritically deployed and disseminated an outdated conceptualisation of learning and knowledge. the dominant learning-as-product view is steadily circulated in assessment-related documents. the learning outcomes are assumed to be stable and fixed over time. this stability enables learning outcomes to be incorporated into curricula and textbooks, to be passed on from teachers to students, its attainment to be measured in essays, presentations, and examinations and be readily amenable to comparison through moderation, external examination, and quality assurance review. thus, he institutions depend on documents in ensuring that learning outcomes are stable, durable and familiar to be widely replicable across programmes and disciplines. this delivers the transparency requirement of standardisation and objective benchmarking of educational attainment. bloom’s taxonomy has been put to work for far too long and as such, it has become one of the institutional norms. its place in module guides and its work in assessment practices must be reviewed at the very least. 5. intended learning outcomes setting learning outcomes is now the prevailing approach of assessment in he, replacing the identification and development of content (orr, 2005). hussey and smith (2002; 2003; 2008) have argued that the concept of learning outcomes has become tightly 1 here, i refer to bruno latour’s (2005) concept of ‘black box’ as those processes that are deemed fixed, stable and entangled with notions of specificity, transparency, and measurability and their uses have to do more with administrative and regulatory necessity than to serve the purposes for which they are adopted for. in fact, they have become largely irrelevant to classroom activities and practices. the account that the specification of learning outcomes in programme handbooks and module guides is important for ensuring transparency of expectations to students must be examined. there are false assumptions that must be unpicked and exposed in driving programmes through a set of learning outcomes. first, writing learning outcomes down does not make them transparent. besides, once read, the interpretation is varied and the meaning is not easily shared. ultimately, they are only transparent to those who create and write them. in fact, orr (2005) argues that transparency has led to opaque or black boxed1 practices. programme developers and leaders wrestle with documents upon documents replete with demonstrable and behaviourist verbs, conveniently laid out by the same text: ‘on completion of this module a student should be able to’. the following scenario should be quite familiar, especially for colleagues and institutions that have been subjected to the preparation of a programme for review and re-validation: those involved in approving or validating new programmes can become embroiled in debates about the precise niceties of the semantics; the focus on such activities being in danger of diverting attention away from the principal purposes of modules or courses. institutions back themselves into the most remarkable corners of what is and what is not acceptable at which level, such as bans on the use of the verb ‘analyse’ at first year level … and the complete expunging of the verb ‘understand’ from any level (hussey and smith, 2003, p. 367). the verb must describe what students should be able to do. it has to be an observable and assessable function. non-specific verbs and phrases such as, ‘understand’, ‘be familiar with’, ‘appreciate’ and persistent without scrutiny though their workings are not necessarily and explicitly known and understood. prism enriquez (2020) prism 106 3(1) ‘comprehend’ should be avoided. alternative active verbs must be used, such as, ‘compare’, ‘describe’, ‘explain’ and ‘identify’. the sequence identified by the descriptors may well represent a seamless progression in cognitive terms, but it remains, as hussey and smith (2002) point out, at odds with the empirical knowledge of academic staff and suggests a uni-directional movement that distorts the real process of knowledge construction and meaning-making. verbs could not stand on their own even when they are written down and assigned to an educational taxonomy. and yet, we (and this is includes my own practice) concede and use a prescriptive list of descriptors to comply with curriculum development guidelines. i am not arguing that learning outcomes should be abandoned or that we should not have them in module guides. they do matter. however, they have to matter and be done differently. i do agree that learners must be introduced to concepts and ideas progressively towards more complex levels. however, my argument is that documented learning outcomes could potentially limit the possibilities of assessment practices by devaluing the emergent and dialogic relation between students and their teachers. the verbs used in the 53 module guides that became ‘data’ for the document analysis in this article, were made to ‘act’ in ways that are unnatural to what really matters in assessment. the verb ‘analyse’ along with ‘evaluate’ and ‘reflect’, was most frequently used for second-year and third-year level learning outcomes. what makes third-year (level 6) ‘analyse’ a distinctly higher level outcome descriptor than second-year level ‘analyse’ was the fact that the former was prefixed with ‘critically’. in fact, ‘critically’ was used 39 times in the module guides. this deliberate act to articulate learning outcomes at the ‘right’ programme level of learning outcomes is further explored in the next section. 6. show me ‘critically’ hussey and smith (2002) have a few objections to learning outcomes. first, they argue that their clarity, explicitness, and objectivity are largely spurious or contrived. they give the impression of precision only because we unconsciously interpret them against a prior understanding of what is required and a black boxed construction of what the verbs mean, pretending or wishfully establishing a shared meaning. in brief, they are parasitic upon the very knowledge and understanding that they promise to exhibit. in particular, they rely heavily on bloom’s behaviourist taxonomy. for instance, the word ‘analyse’ or ‘discuss’ have been preceded by the word ‘critically’ in third-year level learning outcomes. to qualify a second-year level ‘analyse’ and a third-year level ‘analyse’ by adding ‘critically’ would not achieve a precise interpretation of meaning for students because a written text is not a meaning carrier. instead, meaning is constructed by the students and their teachers. interpretation is relative and must be relevant to the assessment type, lecture content, subject matter or level. in this sense ‘critically’ only serves as an intended outcome; more than this, it importantly assumes that we already knew (or know) what constitutes critical evaluation as a distinct style or array of contents at third-year level. the word in itself does not tell us this. learning outcomes remain ambiguous no matter what verbs and descriptors are used. this is further complicated in practice when learning outcomes are also used as assessment criteria. of course, we know that we have to formulate our learning outcomes based on the subject matter, an understanding of the requirements of the course and educational level and informed by our experiences of teaching and marking at various levels. these are not easily captured in text and even if they are, students would not necessarily have the expertise or experience to read the ‘intended meaning or message’; hence, the extent to which the words themselves are able to capture and articulate – in a universally precise way – academic standards and expectations should be recognised as problematic. the mere fact of writing and documenting learning outcomes does not make them unambiguous and transparent at all. and, where the word ‘critically’ is concerned, this (in itself) does not clarify the difference between ‘second-year level analyse’ and ‘third-year level analyse’. in the end, criticality is formulaically bureaucratised and reduced to a hollow cipher; another collateral consequence of power-sanctioned documentation and paper-work, it is no more easily understood nor is its implied meaning conjured and shared. prism enriquez (2020) prism 107 3(1) 7. documents at work documents are powerful means for structuring and disseminating information, but also for instructing and maintaining norms. yet the ‘social life’ of (or paperwork associated with) the document is generally neglected in assessment literature. if the notion of paper-work remains unexamined, there is a real danger that inane procedural concerns ‘trump’ at the expense of critical understanding and pedagogic rigour. furthermore, an uncritical acceptance of increasingly prescriptive and standardised outcomes, along with elevated protocols for control compliance as part of managerial functions, serve to create and maintain instrumental attitudes to assessment with a false assurance of quality. seeing module guides and assessment documents as vehicles that enshrine and maintain mechanisms of control, as artefacts that produce a black box mimesis for transparency and accountability, and not just an innocuous conduit to carry and deliver information, makes it easier to understand the utility and persistence of old ideologies and learning theories disguised within new educational priorities and agendas. documents are not innocuous. the idea of a document as a neutral carrier of information is misleading. undoubtedly, documents ‘carry’ and ‘transmit’ information. but simultaneously, they hide or silence others. we need to see the way documents have served not simply to write, but also to underwrite social aspects of learning as clearly expressed in bloom’s behaviourist taxonomy; not simply to comply, but also to coordinate social values and experiences. by conceptualising the module guide, with its learning outcomes and precisely worded assessment regime as social practice, as paper-work with material force and purpose, this article has attempted to bring into view a broader framework for documents-at-work and to emphasise how what is written down enact and produce a collateral deficit. documents become sources of standards and are, to some extent, circulated as standards. as such, they become performance monitors that carry the weight of invisible and yet dominant positivist values. they control and regulate the behaviour of academics and students. in practice, through the act of paper-work assessment activities serve and ensure institutional audit, national standards and external examining benchmarks. increasingly, documents have also served as substitutes for communities of practice as academic staff members follow or read the same documents or use the same report templates and guidelines. within a techno-rationalist agenda, a bureaucratic document culture is established and promoted, and alongside it, a culture of compliance persists. the drive for transparency and accountability has disintegrated communication and community where most often than not documents speak on behalf of educators when it comes to quality and standards. hence, the resulting community is an ‘imagined’ one and the central way that they are imagined is through the documents they share. paper-work coordinates assessment activities. the mirror of accountability and quality standards is held up to academic staff in moderation reports, external examiners’ comments, etc. consequently, the paper-work creates a sense of commonality that is remarkably resilient, even though they become outdated and irrelevant. in fact, academics fully cooperate with documents. academic practices are negotiated with them. assessment must be completed in consultation with them. inadvertently, they maintain a sense of community – that we are all in it together. they have become our closest ‘colleagues’. this is not to suggest that communities of practice no longer exist or could not exist. instead, this account merely recognises the efficacy of bureaucratic text lies in its capacity to promote tick-box exercises, particularly in a climate of increasing teaching hours per academic staff and larger student cohorts. seen this way, brown and duguid (1996) argue, shared documents are in many ways the grounds for contention and opacity and the pre-text for agreement or compliance. without context, documents (modules guides) and words like ‘critically’ are ‘standards-in-use’ that are easily shared without necessarily co-constructing meaning or interpretation. in different practices, there is no “right” interpretation of a document – of a learning outcome or of ‘critically’. the meaning of ‘critically’ is not simply “in” the written word or document that contains it. rather, it is constructed by the “culture of audit and compliance” around assessment and other documentary realities prism enriquez (2020) prism 108 3(1) under consideration. from this point of view, the fixed, immutable document plays a valuable role. it demands institutional transparency and compliance. being able to talk about the “same” set of documents is extremely useful. over time, they become the norms and conventions that form and inform habits of assessment. from the representation of information to performativity, we are compelled to submit and accept that we have somehow access to transparency, accountability and quality through the production and use of the same documents. in fact, we submit to the use of the same ‘verbs’ for learning outcomes to establish the ‘right’ thinking skills for students. surely, we can see how documents do things just as ‘words’ do things as john austin suggests in his 1962 book on how to do things with words and yet we would not claim the same about how documents shape and dictate what really matters in assessment and its practices. documents are too deeply entrenched within an academic culture that they have taken on a common-sense appeal. they seem ‘natural’ and yet, there is nothing natural about bloom’s taxonomy and its levels of higher thinking skills. at their very best, documents, just like the apparatuses barad (2003) speaks about, are not just inscription or recording artefacts that could be set and circulated before, during and after assessment. they are not neutral probes or passive arrangements that are merely there to capture assessment practices. in fact, they are a key and core part of assessment practice; they enact boundaries carefully executed in assessment criteria and rubrics. to change assessment practices, we have to intervene and interrupt the doings of documents and rework what really matters to assessment and its practices. so what can we do with documents? i do not propose that bloom’s taxonomy should be replaced but that its ideologies must not be overlooked. we must consider and make explicit its limitations and contradictions to current educational theories and approaches. we must work with students to participate in and co-create the meaning of learning outcomes and other documents of their programmes. academic staff and students must engage in producing and performing assessment with other documents that are not necessarily prescribed by institutional and quality assurance protocols. it must be the case that we can create other documentary realities. 8. conclusion so what do we learn if we attend to documents? what happens if we see them and the work they are doing, and manage to treat them as part of – and an expression of – practice, rather than as more or less transparent representation of a pre-given or intended reality of learning outcomes and higher-order thinking skills? the answer comes in three parts: 1) we overcome the obviousness of representations and focus on what gets done with and by documents. 2) we recognise that when standards are done, they are startlingly varied or multiple in their effects. 3) it allows us to explore alternatives and include other kinds of documents and ways of documenting that could produce and share learning outcomes and assessment criteria that value open and emergent processes. as we have seen, assessment is in part documentsat-work and the other part, habits or routinised processes or procedures. particular collateral realities are enacted in the documentary accounts – realities of transparency in written learning outcomes, academic progression through verb assignment using bloom’s taxonomy and objectivity through moderation reports and external examiner’s reviews. documents have performative effects and such realities are ‘done’ and ‘accomplished’ through assessment practices. the quality assurance of assessment practices outlines behaviours and social processes conducive to matters of certification as an institutional activity. activities, behaviours, and social rules become institutionalised through documents that occur through common behavioural routines that lead to shared taken-forgranted norms, conventions, and habits. ‘written’ assessment practices must describe assessment in terms of the manner and the extent to which it makes sense to learners. otherwise, documents become a mechanism to shut down or mute staff and student voice and remove the critical dimensions of student-centredness from assessment prism enriquez (2020) prism 109 3(1) practices. documents could easily become rules to be followed and nothing else. furthermore, in a managerialist university, they could easily become ends in themselves. it is therefore highly recommended that alternative documents must be produced and used. understanding how documents are involved in enacting and producing assessment practices invite and encourage us to change documents or how we use them. this act could have wide-reaching social and material effects. for instance, discussion of past papers and exemplars and the setting of assessment criteria with students and peers could create the opportunity to develop a common ground for establishing assessment standards. please understand that this is not a complaint or criticism about institutional guidelines or indeed about the quality assurance agency and its standards. it is just an attempt to attend to what documents actually ‘say’ and ‘do’. it is an observation about the nature of practice, specifically the practice of assessment, which is not something i and my fellow academics simply do. our doings are not independent of the paper-work of assessment documents. this is not an evaluation of assessment or how it is done. instead, it is a recognition that it could be done differently. what is deemed ‘common sense’ or ‘common practice’ is always more or less incoherent. documents are practices through and through. their representation, textual or otherwise, is actually not transparent at all. documents themselves can either liberate or oppress us. we must learn to perceive and do things differently with documents. there are many types of politics at play at both macro and micro levels. the politics of those realities that are no longer questioned – those documents and taxonomies like bloom’s must be made visible as briefly shown here. the point is to shift our understanding of the sources of relative immutability and obduracy of conventions and apparent transparency of standards through documents to ‘choreographies of practice’ (law 2009). transparency through paper-work is intended to ‘level the ground’ and reduce, if not to eliminate, the intractable practices of assessment. however, the collateral reality of documents has proven to simply displace our concerns to an impersonal and inflexible medium (kafka, 2012). in fact, it authorises blanket and distant surveillance of academic work without ever ‘filing’ or ‘documenting’ the tacit marking standards and criteria that remain unwritten but regularly at work. ultimately, paper-work is also part of assessment work. it happens to be a form of work that we find ourselves doing a lot of the time. and like many kinds of work, it just has to be done. the invitation or reminder of this article is to do it differently and to recognise perhaps that some aspects of assessment must remain unwritten and the written (i.e., intended learning outcomes, ‘critically’) could be communicated and expressed in other forms of communicative practices. documents, as currently constructed and issued, enforce a certain type of paperwork. my work is not complete, valid and compliant without a permanent document to refer to. the paperwork of this article addresses the particular social and material practice of an educator or a classroom teacher who spends so much time doing fair assessments and push him or her just slightly over the edge to follow the flow of power in the opposite direction of conventional performativity and ‘undo’ documents. prism enriquez (2020) prism 110 3(1) 9. disclosure statement this research project was funded by the teaching and learning academy, liverpool john moores university. 10. acknowledgements the author would like to thank adele lunn for her contribution to this research project. i am also grateful for the comments received from reviewers to ‘uplift’ the intent of the artilcle and for the painstaking editorial input provided by dr craig hammond. 11. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 12. to cite this article: enriquez, j. (2020). paper-work: what module guides have to say about assessment practices. prism, 3(1), 99-112 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doaj.org/toc/2514-5347?source=%7b%22query%22%3a%7b%22filtered%22%3a%7b%22filter%22%3a%7b%22bool%22%3a%7b%22must%22%3a%5b%7b%22terms%22%3a%7b%22index.issn.exact%22%3a%5b%222514-5347%22%5d%7d%7d%2c%7b%22term%22%3a%7b%22_type%22%3a%22article%22%7d%7d%5d%7d%7d%2c%22query%22%3a%7b%22match_all%22%3a%7b%7d%7d%7d%7d%2c%22size%22%3a100%2c%22_source%22%3a%7b%7d%7d https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0301206 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://doaj.org/ prism enriquez (2020) prism 111 3(1) 13. references allen-robertson, j. 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(2008). non-representational theory: space, politics, affect. london: routledge. https://doi.org/10.1332/174426411x579207 https://doi.org/10.1080/158037042000199434 https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159022020687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104953 https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787402003003003 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510309399 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510701794159 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2 http://heterogeneities.net/publications/law2009collateralrealities.pdf.%20accessed%2007%20july%202016 http://heterogeneities.net/publications/law2009collateralrealities.pdf.%20accessed%2007%20july%202016 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-008-9069-x https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0038038508094564 prism journal prism volume 3, issue 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 21 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 white man face, order words and deviance detectors: a deleuzoguattarian analysis of fundamental british values francis farrell faculty of education, edge hill university, ormskirk, uk (farrellf@edgehill.ac.uk.ac.uk) received: 14/10/2020 accepted for publication: 18/02/2021 published: 27/04/2021 abstract this article is a critical discussion of the requirement placed upon teachers by the united kingdom (uk) government to promote fundamental british values. using deleuze and guattari’s concept of the white man face, i argue that fundamental british values operate as a racial deviance detector whose purpose is to discipline, reform and reintegrate student and teacher subjects who do not conform to the norms of state sanctioned british identity fundamental british values define. to dismantle the british values policy assemblage, the article calls for experimental antiracist educational alliances that question and reveal the power structures that give rise to the racial politics of the white man face. keywords: fundamental british values, deleuze and guattari, civic nationalism, white man face. 1. the ‘mission of integration’ in her 2018 speech to the policy exchange think tank, amanda spielman, hm chief inspector of education in england, stated that the teaching of the british values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect are at the heart of the uk government’s strategy to promote integration and a common vision. young people in britain, she argues, are vulnerable to exploitation by extremists and therefore require the teaching of british values, because ‘if we leave these topics to the likes of the edl and bnp on the one hand and islamists on the other, then the mission of integration will fail’ (spielman, 2018). in her 2019 speech at the wellington festival of education, she reiterated this message stating that ‘it is so important that all these values are taught, understood and lived’ and that ‘school is how and where we make sure that every young british citizen ends up with the same level of understanding’ (spielman, 2019). viewed from an uncritical perspective, british values are simply the reassertion of liberal values in the face of an extreme terror threat. however, i argue that british values are the culmination of a discursive shift in education policy from multiculturalism (runnymede, 1985) and post war discourses of equal opportunity (favell, a. 2001), to a ‘new integrationism’ (kundnani, 2007). fundamental british values (fbvs) were formally introduced to british education policy and practice in https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://doi.org/10.24377/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302202 https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:farrellf@edgehill.ac.uk.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0733-2572 prism farrell (2021) prism 22 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) 2012 as a requirement of the teachers’ professional standards, but they have their origins in a wider political discourse that emerged in response to the 9/11 alqaeda attacks on the world trade centre, the 2001 riots in northern british towns, the 2003 invasion of iraq and the 2005 7/7 terror attacks in london. they are part of a broader governmental narrative that argues ‘that a national story of britishness must be promoted in order to bind the nation together around a set of core values, to which minorities must assimilate’ (kundnani, 2007, p. 24). however, britain has no written constitution. fbvs were not formulated through democratic parliamentary debate, instead, they originate in prevent, the uk government’s counter terror strategy. fbvs are the end point of a policy journey from the liberal pluralism of the swann report (runnymede, 1985) to a defensive form of twenty-first century governmental civic nationalism. civic nationalism, as defined by michael ignatieff, envisages ‘the nation as a community of equal, rightsbearing citizens, united in patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values’ (ignatieff, 1994, pp. 3-4). however, the civic nationalism of fbvs places those who adhere to national civic values in opposition to those it positions as culturally different. it is a paradoxical liberalism, which requires ofsted inspectors to question female muslim primary school children about the muslim veil and warns that religious minorities cannot expect ‘cultural entitlements’ (spielman as cited in weale, 2018) whilst simultaneously espousing religious tolerance (dfe, 2014). viewed from the critical perspective of this paper, ‘the mission of integration’ takes on a disciplinary meaning, laden with antimuslim messages, ‘it is their cultural difference which needs limits placed on it; it is they who must declare their allegiance to (ill-defined) british values’ (kundnani, 2007, p. 26). 2. aims of the paper with a specific focus on fbvs, i aim to problematise the civic nationalist turn in uk education policy by using deleuze and guattari’s theories of racism as tools to examine its discursive power effects on student and teacher subjectivity. to provide context, i begin with a critical genealogy of the british values discourse outlining a policy journey from integration to securitization. in the sections which follow, i explore deleuze and guattari’s critique of the racial representationalism operating through difference-bydegree and the white man face, their image for hegemonic whiteness. drawing from a range of critical literature and empirical interview material, i argue that the fbvs requirement functions through language and symbolism to form a racial deviance detector whose purpose is to discipline, reform and reintegrate student and teacher bodies who do not conform to the norms of state-sanctioned british identity. unlike dialectical accounts of racism that focus on its othering effects, deleuze and guattari argue that racism functions through difference-by-degree, by determining the extent to which a person deviates from the racial norm they refer to as the white man face by reintegrating those it has marked as racial deviants: ‘from the viewpoint of racism, there is no exterior, there are no people on the outside. there are only people who should be like us and whose crime it is not to be’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p.208). in place of structural linguistics which understands language as informational and communicative, deleuze and guattari propose pragmatics, a critical ‘politics of language’ which interprets policy discourse as ‘action, a way of doing things in words’ (st pierre, 2016, p. 1085). through an original application of deleuze and guattari’s theory this paper aims to demonstrate and reveal what fbv policy does to student and teacher subjects. the article concludes with a discussion of deleuze and guattari’s micro politics and calls for experimental anti-racist educational alliances that question and reveal the power structures that give rise to the racial politics of the white man face. 3. from integration to securitization in this section i examine the history behind the unprecedented levels of regulation and surveillance introduced through the fbvs policy assemblage. vociferous debates about multiculturalism, belonging and british identity have been a feature of british education policy since the late 1960s but in 2001 a series of riots took place in northern towns and cities prism farrell (2021) prism 23 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) (burnley, bradford, leeds, oldham and stoke-on-trent) which led to a new government strategy called ‘community cohesion’ (worley, 2005). the report, commissioned in the aftermath of the riots and chaired by ted cantle, associate director of the improvement and development agency for local government, referred to communities of primarily asian muslim origin as living ‘parallel lives’ (cantle, 2001). instead of asking how society excludes muslims the report asked why it was that muslims were refusing to integrate (kundnani, 2007). 4. new labour, britishness and christianity in its recommendations, the cantle report argued for common values and shared civic culture (cantle, 2001). the notion of shared values was pivotal to new labour education policy. home secretary david blunkett stated that he was weary of ‘unbridled multiculturalism which privileges difference over community cohesion’ (blunkett in mathieu, 2018, 47) and church schools were singled out by both prime minister tony blair and david blunkett as exemplary in the promotion of shared values. in 2001, in a speech to the christian socialist movement, blair stated that ‘church schools are a true partnership between the churches and the government’ and ‘a pillar of our national education system’ (blair in jivraj, 2013, p. 324). blunkett stated that church schools had an ethos that he wanted to ‘bottle’, thus privileging a type of christianity closely identified with shared national values (jivraj, 2013). the events of the 9/11 al qaeda terror attacks and the 7/7 attacks in the uk added another dimension to the integrationist shared values discourse: security. the response of new labour was the implementation of prevent (dclg, 2007), a strand of the government’s counter terror strategy contest (home office, 2003). prevent involved funding local authorities in areas with high muslim populations through engagement projects such as youth work. however, extensive police involvement led to criticism of the strategy for securitizing british muslims (thomas, 2016; kundnani, 2007). 5. muscular british values new labour left office in 2010 and the conservative liberal democrat coalition formed, led by conservative prime minister, david cameron. in february 2011 cameron delivered a speech to the munich security council denouncing ‘the doctrine of state multiculturalism’ (cameron, 2011a) asserting national values in defence of ‘our way of life’ (cameron, 2011a). cameron proposed ‘muscular liberalism’ in place of multiculturalism. in december he made a speech to church of england clergy to mark the 400th anniversary of the king james bible declaring that ‘we [britain] are a christian country and we should not be afraid to say so’ (cameron, 2011b). cameron stated that a return to christian values was necessary to counter islamic extremism and moral collapse. he equated christian values with british values claiming that the bible provided, ‘a set of values and morals which make britain what it is today’ (cameron, 2011b). soon after the speech the coalition government sent every school in the country a copy of the king james bible which contained a foreword by education secretary, michael gove. cameron’s speeches utilize anglican christianity and british values as the standard to which all must conform, but this christian underpinning of universal values, ‘circulates as a discourse of good citizenship’, conceals a raced hierarchy, ‘and orientalist configurations about non-christianness’ (jivraj, 2013, p. 333). in 2012 british values, framed as ‘fundamental british values’, officially entered the statutory professional frameworks of the dfe teachers’ standards which outline the minimum level of professional practice required of teachers working in the state sector. fbvs were introduced as a requirement placed upon teachers ‘not to undermine fundamental british values’, defined as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and respect for faiths (dfe, 2014). the definition was taken from prevent which defines extremism as ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental british values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’ (prevent, 2019). prism farrell (2021) prism 24 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) in 2014, the sunday times reported on an anonymous letter received by birmingham city council making allegations of a plot by ultra conservative muslims to infiltrate the governing bodies of several birmingham academy schools. the plot became known as the trojan horse affair. the letter was exposed as a hoax, but it had significant implications for british values policy. in response, michael gove, education secretary, initiated a full investigation of the schools in question led by the former head of the metropolitan police counter–terrorism unit. nationally, schools were threatened by no-notice ofsted inspections to monitor islamic extremism in the classroom. the requirement not to undermine and to uphold fbv was strengthened by additional government guidance that required schools to ‘actively promote fundamental british values’ (dfe, 2014, p. 4) through cross-curricular spiritual, moral, social and cultural education (smsc). in 2015 the counter terrorism and security act was passed which placed the prevent duty upon schools and colleges to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ (great britain parliament, 2015). high-stakes school inspections now include consideration of how settings promote fbv and the prevent duty. failure to do so leads to a judgement of ‘inadequate’ and to school closure. this genealogy traces an intensification of the state’s gaze upon suspect communities targeted for regulation and intervention. fbvs are the culmination of a policy narrative that regards ‘a plurality of values’, as ‘problematic’ and asserts that ‘an absence of social cohesion is the product of an absence of core values’ (revell and bryan, 2018, p. 28). from the perspective of this paper, fbvs mask a disciplinary security agenda within the language of democracy and tolerance. there is disingenuity in the way in which britishness has been mobilized for political purposes when ideas of nation are deeply entwined with race (parekh, 2000; clarke & garner, 2009). as vincent argues, what appears to be the state asserting a benign universalism is in fact a form of polarised identity politics and an attempt to integrate others, especially muslim others (vincent, 2018). this is a contradictory intolerant tolerance that asserts that no polity can be stable unless all its members share a common national identity. 6. critical literature miah (2017) notes that the problematics of race, security and education have received relatively limited attention by scholars working in the sociology of race. studies in race and education which adopt a deleuzean approach are even rarer. this paper aims to advance the contribution of deleuzoguattarian theory to critical education scholarship by applying deleuze’s critical theoretical ‘tools’ (deleuze, as cited in lotringer, 1996, p 76) to fbv, but firstly consideration will be given to the wider literature and key themes it identifies. the earliest studies highlight the assimilationist discourse of new labour community cohesion policy (jerome & clemitshaw, 2012). keddie (2014) found evidence of support for fbv amongst some teachers who believed it would promote social cohesion. smith’s investigation of teacher views (smith 2016) found that fbv reinforced ‘us and them’ ways of thinking, reflecting deleuze and guattari’s argument that racism works through binarisation (deleuze & guattari, 2013b). panjwani’s study (2016) investigated muslim teachers’ views of fbv, revealing concerns that prevent would transform them into government watchdogs. similarly, elton-chalcraft et al (2016, p. 1) concluded that fbv positions teachers as instruments of state surveillance. other studies have drawn upon foucault’s concepts of discipline and governmentality (farrell, 2016; farrell & lander, 2019; bryan, 2017), racist nativism (smith, 2016), policy enactment theory (bamber et al. 2019) and baumann’s concept of liquid modernity (revell and bryan, 2018) to theorise teacher enactments of fbvs. winter and mills (2018) emphasise the ways in which fbvs operate through a neoliberal tactic of political amnesia and disavowal of the legacies of colonialism. vincent (2018) argues that a detheologised post-secular christianity shapes civic values in education policy, reflecting deleuze and guattari’s critique of the relationship between christianity and western racism. of the small body of literature on learner identity and fbvs, dominant themes focus on the ways in which security policy in education constructs young muslims as vulnerable and in need of correction (coppock, 2014; green, 2017; pihlaja, 2017; prism farrell (2021) prism 25 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) thomas, 2011). these studies align to deleuze and guattari’s analysis of the processes of ‘subjectification’ at work in racial policy assemblages. miah (2017) describes these processes as constitutive of the ‘muslim problematic’ and shain (2011) outlines how young male muslims have been pathologized as the new ‘folk devils’. drawing from uk and australian examples, rowe argues that hegemonic whiteness operates to define shared values, with the result that muslims are cast ‘as problems that need to be addressed’ (rowe, 2020, p.57). as this review has shown, a deleuzoguattarian analysis complements much of the critical scholarship on fbv, but it also offers new ways of thinking about race as difference-in-itself and for problematizing the technologies that neoliberal state racism uses to reform and assimilate bodies it has marked as deviant. 7. deleuze, guattari and fundamental british values deleuze described his theories as ‘tools’ to reveal and undermine the effects of power at its most insidious and invisible (deleuze in lotringer, 1996, p.76). the following section begins with a discussion of ‘difference’, leading into a detailed exposition of the concept of the white man face and the ways in which racialised norms are mobilized through discourse as ‘order words’. a. difference speaking to journalists in 2012, eric pickles, coalition communities secretary, challenged, ‘those who want to disown the traditions of the majority, including the christian faith and the english language’ (walford, 2012). his words mirror deleuze and guattari’s description of assimilatory racism that follows the logics of ‘difference-by-degree’ and asserts that ‘there are only people who should be like us’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). from the point of view of difference-bydegree someone or something is different to the extent that they differ from some standard or universal point of reference. in the case of fbv, difference-by-degree operates by determining the extent to which students and teachers deviate from the racial standard signified by the adjective british. in contrast to difference-bydegrees, deleuze proposes a theory of positive difference, ‘difference-in-itself’ (deleuze, 2014), internal to all things, an, ‘irreducible affirmative difference within being itself’ (secor, 205, p. 299). however, in the securitised context of the post 9/11 world diversity as difference-in-itself ‘no longer commands respect because ‘it has become conditional on a new duty to integrate at the level of shared values’ (mcghee as cited in habib, 2018, p. 13). fbvs operates according to the logic of difference-by-degrees by functioning as a normative standard that all must conform to. deleuze and guattari refer to these sorts of policy enactments as ‘social machines’ that code, discipline and produce subjectivities. the type of machine at work in the fbv/prevent policy assemblage is a system that deleuze and guattari refer to as ‘faciality’, the white man face. the function of faciality is the production of normality. at one level, faciality operates through and produces actual ‘concrete’ faces, literal visages which can be seen in the way capitalist society imposes a certain appearance upon bodies. posters, advertising imagery and social media such as instagram and facebook besiege users with psychic and physical clichés in the form of ‘faces’ that come as, ‘ready-made perceptions’ (deleuze as cited in harper & savat, 2016, p. 51) that users can ‘slide into’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 207). when internalized, these social messages produce subjectivity providing ‘the coordinates and contours that allow the signifying subject to emerge’ (o’sullivan, 2006, p. 311). language is key to this process of subject formation. for deleuze and guattari language is illocutionary and performative, constituting the objects of which it speaks through a process of interpellation they call ‘signifiance’. ultimately, as will be demonstrated, this analysis has critical implications for the ways in which student and teacher subjects are positioned in the web of signifiance mobilized by fbv. b. white man face in the faciality chapter of ‘a thousand plateaus’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b), deleuze and guattari use racism as an example of the faciality social machine. the faciality ‘plateau’ is entitled year zero, ‘the year zero of prism farrell (2021) prism 26 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) christ and the historical development of the white man’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 196). this racial standard of the white man face is inextricably linked to the global dominance of white european culture, imperialism, and ‘the semiotic of capitalism’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). deleuze and guattari are referring to the ways in which christianity and colonialism have operated in ideological and theological concert to justify racism and slavery (saldanha, as cited in saldanha & adams, 2013, p. 18). the power of the white man is symbolized by the face of christ. the standard ‘face’ is christian, white, rational, civilizing, ‘it is christ…the typical european’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 206). just as the face of christ in orthodox iconography looks out in judgement (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 216), the racist faciality system functions through a process of judgement deleuze and guattari (2013b) call, ‘the computation of normalities’ (p. 208). the white man face is the raced norm, the ‘transcendental signifier’ that allows judgement to operate according to difference-bydegrees by judging the degree to which those who pass under its gaze deviate or conform to its racial standard. it is key to note that the political rhetoric accompanying british values draws upon anglican christianity as an expression of the disciplinary forces of the white man face in operation. british identity is saturated with racial meanings (clarke & garner, 2009), therefore in fbv policy britishness operates as the white man face, ‘the identity through which all other identities are ranked and organised’ (revell & bryan, 2018, p. 28). to convey the visceral power of ‘signifiance’ to define, delimit and construct subjectivity, deleuze and guattari use the image of a white wall or screen. as a theoretical device this image works at the level of abstraction, the virtual, but of course this abstract system of representation becomes concrete when it is mobilized through racism, ‘the faces are virtual whereas the experiences are actual’ (rushton as cited in harper & savat, 2016, p. 40). the white wall of signifiance operates through language to code and normalise subjectivities but in doing so it produces subject positions deleuze and guattari refer to as ‘redundancies’ or ‘black holes.’ like a literal black hole, these redundancies are occlusions that restrict agency or ‘becomings’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013 b, p. 318). baker et al. (2013) detailed a 143-million-word corpus analysis of the representation of muslims in the british press between 1998 and 2009 to demonstrate the way news media construct muslims as a homogeneous group at odds with western values. the cumulative effect of these representations is to legitimise an essentialist racialized view that imposes a restrictive wall like limit on muslim identity, reflecting deleuze and guattari’s description of the normalising force of the white man face: ‘you will be pinned to the white wall and stuffed in the black hole’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013 b, p. 212). this process of subject formation is called subjectification. as a racial and social sorting machine white man face detects difference through the ‘computation of normalities’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). human subjects are categorized according to biunivocal relationships, ‘an x or a y’, man/woman, rich/poor, white or black’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 207), and in the case of fbv, british or un-british: ‘given a concrete face, the machine judges whether it passes or not…at every moment, the machine rejects faces that do not conform, or seem suspicious…at any rate you’ve been recognized, the abstract machine has you inscribed in its overall grid…as deviance detector’ (deleuze and guattari, 2013b, p. 208). empirical studies have shown how young muslims, endure the constant dissonance entailed by pressure to conform to racial norms (farrell & lander, 2019; green 2017; mythen, 2009; pihlaja, 2017; shazhadi, 2018; thomas, 2016). they are aware of the deviance detectors at work in the media, for example, mythen et al. (2009) found that the effects of binarizing media discourses compelled their participants to constantly qualify their allegiances, exemplified by the response ‘i’m a muslim, but i’m not a terrorist’ (p. 743). similarly, green’s study of young muslims in tower hamlets reveals a strong identification with a britishness which contrasts with their daily experiences of living with media misrepresentations of islam, routine microprism farrell (2021) prism 27 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) aggressions, pressure to secularise and ofsted ‘camped out’ in their multi-cultural college. c. ‘be like us’ a key feature of deleuze and guattari’s notion of the white man face is their description of the ways in which the white wall of signifiance continuously expands in a manner that reflects the soft disciplinary power at work through policies such as fbvs. because ‘the white wall is always expanding’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208), it operates as an apparatus of capture by assimilating anybody that it cannot initially compute. there are ways to be an admissible muslim subject, but only if one conforms to the standards set by the white man face. the white man face judges the extent to which a racialised subject deviates from its norm and then endeavours to reintegrate the ‘deviant’ subject into the majoritarian racial order. racism functions by the determination of degrees of deviance in relation to the white man face, which endeavours to integrate non-conforming traits into increasingly eccentric and backward waves, sometimes tolerating them at given places under given conditions, in a given ghetto…. (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). this assimilatory process is evident in discourses of community cohesion such as prevent, which ‘judges’ communities targeted as suspect and invests resources into their reintegration (thomas, 2016). the racism of the british values assemblage propagates ‘waves of sameness’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). post 9/11 civic and ethnic nationalist discourse sends a message to muslim citizens that you are welcome only if you set your, ‘differences-clothing, identity, and beliefsaside’ (monshipouri, as cited in cesari, 2010, p. 47). fbvs are codes for meanings other than the tolerance they espouse, their function is primarily that of ‘capture’ as, ‘strategies by which those at risk from radicalisation can be reintegrated back into liberal society’ (revell & bryan, 2018, p. 56). the message of fbvs is ‘be like us’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208). fbvs espouse ‘tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’ but this is a tactic masking their assimilatory purpose. neoliberal multiculturalism is a socio-political tool that is used to manage and control difference in which the state sets the terms. the paradoxical state form of multiculturalism operating through policy permits minority groups to be included so long as they follow rules about how this is to be undertaken. only allowing ‘acceptable’ forms of…non-christian religion’ (jivraj, 2013, p. 6) enables government to be seen as the ‘defender of difference for those ‘reasonable’ muslims who fit within the limits of british tolerance’ (jivraj, 2013, p. 13). in contrast to dialectical theories which place emphasis upon the othering processes at work in racism, deleuze and guattari’s theory of racism as assimilation that ‘never abides alterity’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 208) can also be seen in the ways in which community cohesion policy operates by singling out certain muslim organisations as acceptable, such as the sufi muslim council, ‘government has particularly sought to marginalise those muslims who are more vociferous in their political beliefs and instead embarked on a mission to create, promote and fund groups whose version of islam is more in tune with the government’s own beliefs’ (house of commons, 2010, p. 35). a further example can be found in the way prevent has been used to regulate the granting of charitable status to mosques. for jivraj this amounts to a form of state-sanctioned ‘anglican’ islam (jivraj, 2013, p.12). d. order words discourse, deleuze and guattari argue, has profound material effects, it transforms bodies. the primary purpose of assemblies, lessons and school policies on fbv is not to transmit information or allow communication, rather, they issue ‘mots d ’order’ (order words) and enforce social obligations by imposing the ‘semiotic coordinates’ of state-sanctioned british identity upon both teacher and student. language is, therefore, both performative and objectifying: ‘the compulsory education machine does not communicate information; it imposes upon the child semiotic coordinates possessing all of the dual foundations of grammar (masculinefeminine…) (deleuze & guattari, 2013 b, p. 88). and, ‘the elementary unit of language – the statement – is the order word… language is made not to be believed but prism farrell (2021) prism 28 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) to be obeyed, and to compel obedience’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013 b, p. 88). when a teacher issues statements about fbvs which are then adopted and repeated by students, a politicised truth regime about what counts as an admissible existence as a young british subject comes into play. the requirement to actively promote fbvs translates to a discursive ‘speech act’ in which students are judged and repositioned according to the degree to which they deviate from the racial standards mobilized by fbvs. to illustrate how fbvs operate as order words i will use two examples from my empirical research on teachers’ views of the fbv requirement (farrell & lander, 2019). the first example concerns a group interview conducted with secondary teachers of religious education in 2016. one of the teachers, maryam, provided a stark account of the ways in which the ‘speech acts’ of her principal transformed her muslim students into the deviant subjects of the british values discourse (farrell & lander, 2019, p. 473). in an assembly on fbv the students were presented with an image of the twin towers as the principal outlined the fbvs: now the asian children they walked in and they were like right, from what we’ve heard about this assembly, ‘this is targeted at us’… she was trying to address everyone but at the same time she was saying ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘them muslims’, ‘they did this’… that’s where the divisions are going to be created (farrell & lander, 2019, p. 477). maryam’s students knew that fbvs were being used to judge and discipline them. as young muslims, they were aware of their positioning as suspect, but the message from their principal is clear, they must conform to the standards of fbvs, they must ‘be like us’ and reintegrate into the majoritarian racial order. the normalizing racism of the white man face operates through assimilation, firstly by determining the degree of deviation from the norm and then through absorption of difference through the soft power of the disciplinary techniques the state has at its disposal, ranging from fbvs to channel referrals. the following example provides another instance in which a troubled adolescent is transformed into a racialised suspect by the order words operating through the fbv and prevent discourse. in an interview about british values, a secondary teacher described a scenario in which a 16-year muslim female student was referred to her because she had become withdrawn (farrell & lander, 2019, p. 477). rather than interpreting this as teenage anxiety, the teacher was advised that the student was, ‘one to watch’ and, ‘you need to be careful because i can imagine her on tv after trying to get to syria’ (farrell & lander, 2019, p. 477). the student had been transformed by policy discourse from anxious teenager to radicalised run away. in both examples, the order words and speech acts of the fbv assemblage of enunciation affect what deleuze and guattari refer to as ‘incorporeal transformations’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 93) which in turn alter the relationship between teachers and students. where teachers are concerned, deleuze and guattari’s analysis reflects their chameleon like existence as they enact policies to remain professionally compliant. such transformations are made easier if they are already white majoritarian subjects who may even extract some form of surplus, in the form of career capital by finding a way of making the requirement work. in turn this allows policy makers to double their return, as docile governmental subjects become its willing agents. the british values discourse is expressed not only through the speech acts of the classroom, it also finds material expression in the proliferation of british values displays, notice boards and motivational ‘resilience’ building slogans, that can be found in schools and colleges across the uk (moncrieffe & moncrieffe, 2019). in their analysis of 27 primary school fbv display boards they found that ‘almost all images of cultural (british) icons are white british people in positions of power’ (moncrieffe & moncrieffe, 2019, p. 61). the overbearing white-british imagery and mono cultural faces that populate british values displays indicate another site for the reproduction of majoritarian prism farrell (2021) prism 29 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) national identity, as deleuze and guattari argue, ‘the face is a politics’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 212). 8. how do you get out of a black hole? this essay has sought to demonstrate the critical value of an application of deleuze and guattari’s theory to fbv with reference to the concept of the white man face. the examples i have referred to have been chosen to demonstrate that the white man face is more than just a philosophical conceit. for minority students and teachers, the white man face is an instrument of symbolic violence which questions their legitimacy as british citizens and positions them as suspect, as ‘one to watch’ (farrell & lander, 2019). deleuze and guattari address this dilemma and ask ‘how do you dismantle the face? and, how do you get out of a black hole?’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 218). dismantling the ‘face’ requires researchers to confront a racial assemblage of considerable power because it operates through a liberal discourse of shared national values that appear ‘both normal and natural’ (ladson-billings, 1998). this is no easy task. smith’s (2016) investigation of student teachers’ uncritical engagement with fbvs shows that there is a persuasive common-sense appeal to fbvs for many educational professionals shaped by a colour-blind neoliberal discourse of community cohesion. more recently, yildiz (2019) highlights how some education scholars (e.g. hildebrand, 2016; struchers, 2016; vanderbreck & johnson, 2016) are uncritically appropriating fbv ‘as a tool to teach human rights, lgbt rights and cosmopolitanism’ (yildiz, 2019, p. 263). similarly, busher et al (2017) research on teachers’ views of fbv demonstrates the multiple ways in which policy is enacted by teachers, often as a benign requirement, as an opportunity to talk about values, reflecting vincent’s work on the ways fbvs are ‘repackaged’ and ‘re-located’ in the curriculum (vincent, 2019). however, from the critical perspective of this analysis, these examples simply demonstrate the pernicious ways in which the dominant significations operating through fbvs act on teacher and student subjectivities through an educational system where whiteness as the racial standard is normative, ‘so much absorbed and naturalised that it is not aberrant any more’ (ibrahim, 2015, p. 19). as a first step towards problematising signifying regimes deleuze and guattari’s analysis of racism offers critical educators, students and activists, tools that reveal how civic nationalist assemblages produce racially coded norms such as fbvs. but if it is to work, theory must enable and inform practical action (deleuze in lotringer, 1996). action might consist of undertaking critical participatory research with minority students and teachers most affected by the logics at work in the white man face machine of fbvs, those who are disciplined and computed by its gaze. drawing from deleuze and guattari, bignall argues that dismantling restrictive and oppressive structures is a creative ‘technique of desire’ that can lead to the formation of ‘new associations’ that contest the ‘fixed categories of identity and differenceupon which racist structures rely’ (bignall, as cited in saldanha & adams, 2013, p. 89). calls for critical anti-racist, ‘new’ associations between poststructuralist and critical race theory can be found in the work of chadderton (2013) and ibrahim (2015). deleuze and guattari, like critical race theory scholars, are interested in micro politics and the ‘minor’ narratives of subjugated groups. there is considerable scope for theoretical action through collaboration between these frames, indeed there are several theoretical parallels that offer potential for further exploration such as the relationship between the hegemonic white man face and david gillborn’s work on systemic white supremacy as the routine privileging of white interests in british education (gillborn, 2005). 9. lines of flight by creating spaces of criticality and deconstruction through theory and practice, critical scholars can expose the symbolic violence at work in the semiotic regimes of the civic nationalist education policy assemblage. in this sense they become what deleuze and guattari refer to as probe heads, ‘guidance devices’, that is active subjects who recognise the restrictive white walls and imposed subject positions, the redundant black holes of the white man face. probe heads dismantle the strata, ‘break the walls of prism farrell (2021) prism 30 volume 3, issue 2 (2021) signifiance’ and ‘steer the flows down lines of positive deterritorialization or creative flight’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 222). lines of flight are those thought-movements that ‘creatively evolve…to produce new ways of thinking’ (lorraine, as cited in parr, 2005, p. 145). this essay is, therefore, conceptualised as a component of a wider project of research and educational activism that will draw from deleuze and guattari’s critical pragmatics and rhizomatic nonhierarchical method to become a line of flight, ‘only a trickle to begin with’ but evidence too that, ‘there is always something that flows or flees, that escapes the binary organizations, and the overcoding machine’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 252). such a project is both ethical and political, a gesture towards the anti-fascist life (foucault, as cited in deleuze & guattari, 2013 a, p. xiii), but it is a task whose demands should not be underestimated. it requires a belief in the future, a non-stupid optimism, and a deleuzean affirmation that through critical dialogue, education can set free what lives from the incorrigible binaries of the ‘mission of integration’ to create new values and realms of possibility. as deleuze and guattari state, ‘the white wall of the signifier, the black hole of subjectivity…we are born into them’, but ‘it is there where we must stand battle’ (deleuze & guattari, 2013b, p. 221). 10. disclosure statement the author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 11. acknowledgements does the author (do the authors) wish to identify any acknowledgements – if not, delete this section (and renumber)? 12. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 13. references baker, p., costas, g. & mcenery, t. 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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104049/eric-pickles-signals-end-multiculturalism-says-tories-stand-majority.html https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/09/ofsted-amanda-spielman-accuses-minority-groups-entitlement-hijab-row-schools https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/21125525/phd_mit_kemal_y_ld_z_21489211august2019.pdf https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/21125525/phd_mit_kemal_y_ld_z_21489211august2019.pdf https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/21125525/phd_mit_kemal_y_ld_z_21489211august2019.pdf prism journal prism (2021) https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302201 https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302201 1 © 2021 prism, issn: 2514-5347 beyond binaries and before becoming: the affective dimensions of academic-level resistance. mollie baker1 1 faculty of education, university of cambridge, cambridge, england (mlb60@cam.ac.uk) received: 05/05/2020 accepted for publication: 21/02/2021 published: 27/04/2021 abstract drawing from the tensions within non-representational and human practice perspectives on affect, this paper continues the task of re-conceptualising academiclevel resistance in the context of uk higher education. such re-conceptualisation is underpinned by the belief that illustrating the breadth of resistant possibility within and between universities can assist in the development of action against the competitive and for-profit imperatives currently overwhelming this educational sphere. indeed, while resistance research is increasingly interested in the (dis)connections between overt and “everyday” (scott, 1985) forms of action (e.g. contu, 2008; zembylas, 2019), he researchers have paid little attention to the latter. consequently, academic-level resistance remains normatively portrayed as exceptional, novel and less influential than that it rejects. for the sake of contributing a counternarrative, this paper employs a diffractive methodology to examine the affective roles of emotion, meaning making practices and pre-personal factors. by speculating how academic-level resistance derives from not only consciously undertaken cost-benefit analyses but from the entanglement of material and non-material elements, this discussion emphasises the notion of “becoming” and so problematises reductive binaries of overt/covert, high-cost/low-cost, resister/complier. irrespective of the resounding difficulties that accompany efforts to exploit the affective dimensions of resistance, this emphasis nevertheless situates possibility at the heart of uk higher education and the actions pushing against its neoliberal form. keywords: resistance, affect, higher education, poststructural, binaries 1. introduction discourses on student voice are premised on the assumption of a fully conscious, fully speaking, “unique, fixed and coherent” self … no attention is given to the multiple social positions, multiple voices, conscious and unconscious pleasures, tensions, desires, and contradictions which are present in all subjects (orner, 1992, p.79). https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0302201 https://doi.org/10.24377/ https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/ mailto:mlb60@cam.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0589-9222 prism baker (2021) prism 2 early view for orner, critical theory can be as oppressive as the educational systems it seeks to disrupt. by emphasising the role of the “liberatory” teacher in facilitating “authentic student voice”, critical theorists preserve reductive dualisms of silence/voice and oppressor/liberator. in response to this, orner draws from the feminist poststructural practice of problematising the categories of understanding that have developed from humanism’s reliance on “grids of intelligibility … that reward identity and punish difference” (st. pierre, 2000, p.480). by rejecting these superficial classes of understanding, a feminist poststructural approach seeks to highlight the messyin-betweens that have been obfuscated from view (lather, 1991). applying this approach to student voice therefore appreciates how a student can be silent in one space but vocal in another. they are neither one nor the other; they can be, and can alternate between, both (orner, 1992). though the topic of orner’s work differs from this paper’s concern with resistance in uk higher education (he), her criticisms offer a starting point for reconsidering the logics of action in this context. in the last fifty years, uk he has undergone radical alteration, with the injection of more students and more universities accompanied by an everincreasing emphasis on creating competitive states of play between institutions and the actors within them (bacevic, 2019a). although such policy agendas receive ongoing and extensive criticism, he research has theorised academic-level action against the neoliberal environment according to binary perspectives of agentic/passive and overt/covert. moreover, as little empirical attention has been paid to the influence social and institutional context have on resistant engagement, such limiting theorisations cloud the “multiple social positions” and “conscious and unconscious” (orner, 1992, p.79) actions of academic staff, equating inaction with silence and complicitness. using diffractive and feminist poststructural methodologies to draw attention to the affective dimensions of action, this paper speculates that academic-level resistance derives from not only consciously undertaken costbenefit analyses but from the entanglement of material and non-material, known and unknown elements. aside from theoretically situating resistant “becomings” at the heart of uk he, this discussion supports a pathway for future research as well as the development and manipulation of resistant possibility to the benefit of those currently exploited by the way things are. the paper is structured as follows: section one draws together – and apart – theories of diffraction and feminist poststructuralism. sections two and three develop this discussion by first interrogating the limitations that come with categorising resistance and second examining the (dis)connections between nonrepresentational and human practice theories of affect. drawing from the preceding discussions, section four reconsiders the ways in which resistant behaviours in he can be interpreted before exploring the opportunities for future practice that emerge from diffractive and affect theory perspectives. 2. diffractive feminist poststructuralism to foreground the affective dimensions of resistant behaviours, this paper employs a diffractive methodology to consider the affective entanglement of material and non-material, observable and unobservable elements, such as bodies, technologies, discourses, cultures and affective histories. the idea that there is something excessive about experience – something that evades the realm of the tangible and the immediately recognisable – frames resistance as unpredictable and perpetually in construction (hynes, 2013). the onto-epistemological position from which the following arguments develop is hence somewhat deleuzian in its rejection of: a binary logic in favor of a logic of connection, a logic of the and (this and this and this and …), of becoming. the verb, to be, is, is anathema in deleuzian ontology because it stops thought. once equilibrium and identity are established – i am a woman – becoming and difference are impossible (st.pierre, 2013, p.652-653). at the same time, the specific interest in resistance necessitates a binary logic between compliance and non-compliance. this contradiction is similar to the bind negotiated by feminist poststructuralists. as the prism baker (2021) prism 3 early view feminist poststructural rejection of categorisations denies that anything – even feminist poststructural orientations – can be purely this or that, research within this tradition inevitably crosses into deemed “humanist” territory. still, while attempts to “trouble it [humanism]” are inevitably thwarted by a sort of “doing it” (lather, 1996, cited in st.pierre, 2000, p.471), humanism is still problematised more than if it were not troubled at all. within this in mind, this paper centres resistance for purpose of critiquing, rather than bolstering, the distinction between resistance and compliance, action and inaction. just as the described onto-epistemological position rejects binary logics for the sake of uncovering currently obfuscated possibilities, barad’s (2014) diffraction as methodology examines of the role of difference in producing and reproducing power relations, exploring not only how differences get made but the effects and affects of this difference. hein (2016) nevertheless distinguishes barad’s alignment with identity from deleuze’s philosophy of immanence, thereby rendering these two lines of thought philosophically incompatible. however, a diffractive reading of these thinkers can lean them into rather than away from one another. for one, feminist poststructuralists, deleuzians and those working with diffraction are all, in some way, occupied with the idea of becoming – the idea that everything is in a continual process of change and development. deleuze & guattari (1987) discuss becoming as: “what is real is the becoming itself, the block of becoming, not the supposedly fixed terms through which that which becomes passes” (p.238). in and of itself, becoming is brought into being by interweaving “multiplicities” of the “virtual” (an openness to change) and “actual” (embodied in situations) kinds. while this remains invested in immanence rather than identity, roffe (2010) observes how “the changes in actual situations also effect changes in the virtual multiplicity” (p.182), indicating how multiplicities are defined through their relationship with each other. further, deleuze & guattari (1972) maintain: “there is no such thing as either man or nature now, only a process that produces the one within the other and couples the machines together” (cited in mazzei, 2014, p.745). for mazzei, the pairing are – like barad – referring to the entanglement of the material and discursive, within which discursive practices and material phenomena are mutually reliant. while such entanglement can be used to broaden ideas about what resistant-becomings can look like, further discrepancies arise when considering how to convey and empirically examine these possibilities. feminist poststructural thinking draws from deleuze & guattari’s (1987) argument that language “consists not in communicating what one has seen but in transmitting what one has heard, what someone else said to you” (p.85). language is thus merely a signifier, with the misuse of this signifier functioning to recreate inequalities. yet critics of poststructuralism suggest that such critiques of language afford the matter too much power. callus & herbrechter (2012) point towards the use of “code” rather than language, arguing that a divergence from “human-only language” recognises the non-human forms of communication that exceed cognition and comprehension, such as those associated with technology, artificial intelligence and non-human beings. questions persist as to how aspects of these communications, including resistant inclinations, can be interrogated within academic discourse, which centres primarily around consciously selected verbal or written language. to this we can return to feminist poststructuralists, who have taken to perceiving language as a form of thinking rather than representation (as per hanley, 2019; honan, 2007; st. pierre, 2016). by viewing language as a (constrained) means to the end of sharing ideas, language’s power is framed as contingent rather than “trustworthy” (barad, 2003, p.801). despite being fundamentally ill-equipped to capture the breadth of the complexities, influences and developments within resistant behaviours, academic discourse can draw from feminist poststructural and diffractive approaches to bring to the attention of readers the myriad of possible becomings for resistance. further, by treating resistance as a derivative of an “assemblage” of converging, contradictory and non-linear material and non-material elements and moments (strom, 2015), researcher interest pulls towards the affective, thereby interrogating the misrepresentations that prism baker (2021) prism 4 early view have been taken for granted in both resistance theory and he research. 3. problematising categories of resistance one particularly limiting aspect of resistance research is the idea that action can be observed according to a series of classifications and distinctions (e.g. activism/slacktivism, real/decaf, high-cost/lost, collective/individual). as noted, researchers perhaps inevitably work within definitional boundaries by distinguishing transgression from non-transgressive behaviours. however, the tendency to situate resistance within stable categorisations forges misleading conceptions by refusing to acknowledge the behaviours and power dynamics that sit somewhere between this form of resistance and that supposed form in-action. as diffractive work means “to break apart in different directions” (barad, 2014, p. 168), attention now turns towards disrupting just some of the binaries informing sociological conceptions resistant behaviours. at first glance, the literature portrays resistance as ubiquitous. observed across and between all forms of social life and governance, resistance has been associated with not only protest but internet videos and viral trends (boone, secci and gallant, 2017), “everyday” actions (scott, 1985) and even existence (butler, 2016). having argued that definitional inconsistencies make it difficult to draw connections between resistance research, hollander and einwohner (2004) conducted a cross-disciplinary review of the uses of resistance within “several hundred” articles. in almost every article, resistance was related to two senses: opposition and action. despite seeming obvious in some ways, the oppositional stance can be disempowering it its placement of resistance against presumed greater forces. rose (2002), for instance, states: “resistance theory has developed as a response to an overemphasis on the hegemonic system … however, the literature establishes the dominance of the system even more firmly” (p.389). even if it is argued that exposing resistance destabilises the authority of the system by demonstrating how the system is not entirely dominating, the threat this resistance poses is neutralised upon being portrayed, even inadvertently, as less influential than that it rejects. hollander and einwohner’s (2004) observations also led to the development of a typological framework of action, which detailed and thus separated behaviours such as witting and unwitting forms of resistance. the creation of such typologies has been criticised by johansson & vinthagen (2016) for struggling to account for the ways in which social relationships as well as spatial and temporal contexts converge with intersections of power in mobilising and immobilising ways. yet the pair reiterate this point by focusing on the dynamics that facilitate engagement with informal and non-organised actions. they therefore operate on the assumption that the enabling factors for these behaviours are consistent and distinct from those which inspire more overt engagements. with that said, researchers have long questioned whether those who engage in inobtrusive actions do so because they consider it impossible or dangerous to engage in more obvious confrontations, with a clear divide frequently drawn between overt and covert behaviours (e.g. goldfarb, 2008; scott, 1985; zembylas, 2019). one implication of perceiving everything, including action and organisations, to be in a process of becoming is that the cultures, norms and expectations within organisations are contingent. such norms can hence be informed and changed by subtly resistant behaviours, such as working slowly and denying any “surplus obedience” (gros, 2020). against this, fleming and spicer (2008) maintain that: “now that even ‘organizational farting’ or ‘bitching’ might be legitimately considered resistance, there is a risk of reducing resistance to the most banal and innocuous actions” (p.303). for contu (2008), assigning significance to everyday resistance restricts the potential for societal transformation by discouraging “risky” forms of action. drawing a distinction between “real” behaviours which seek to revolutionise the status quo, and everyday “decaf” transgressions, contu argues that: “just as decaf coffee, makes it possible for us to enjoy without the costs … [it] is a softer resistance, a resistance without the acid that can destroy the machine of power” (p.374). contu’s hierarchy of action is grounded in the idea that transformation is the logical end point of resistance. though this supposition appears sensical, the real/decaf dualism undermines the influence of prism baker (2021) prism 5 early view contextual factors on resistant engagement. even if change is equally desired, inequalities of opportunity and outcome mean the risk associated with action will differ per participant. further, and having examined the “ceremony” of union-supported strikes in a uk hei, mccabe (2019) claims that even overt forms of resistance can seek for a return to, rather than an overturning of, prior conditions. yet it is simply not the case that only overt forms of resistance can challenge the status quo. for one, a number of authors assert that all forms of resistance, even subtle ones, operate as a reminder that power is never totalising (goldstein, 2017; mccabe, 2019; wetherell, mcconville and mccreaner, 2020; zembylas, 2019). moreover, an observation made during goldfarb’s (2008) observation of checkpoint workers throughout palestinian-occupied territories alludes to the ways covertly enacted actions both preserve a sense of possibility and push the boundaries of the current norm: checkpoint workers constantly subverted physical boundaries: at night they stealthily pushed concrete blocks a few more inches apart … they reclaimed the space of the checkpoint from being purely a site of oppression and brutality into one where livelihood … could be recovered (p.1824). by attempting to box the matter, binaries and categorisations of resistance therefore fail to account for the multidirectional nature of resistant behaviours, meaning the resulting observations are misrepresentative and capable of offering minimal guidance for future action. 4. affect, excess and meaning making acknowledging the affective dimensions of resistance privileges non-linear and non-conscious forms of action. for ahmed (2010), affect constitutes an evaluation of an event or affective intensity, with these evaluations “expressed in how bodies turn toward things” (p.23). hence, “to experience an object as being affective or sensational is to be directed not only toward an object but to what is around that object … the conditions of its arrival” (p.25). since these conditions depend on an individual’s affective history, what motivates one person to participate in resistance may struggle to motivate another and what one individual considers to be a resistant engagement may be considered by another as compliant. conceptions of affect are competing, however. critical and cultural theorists have focused on the circuit from affect to emotion, implying the orientation towards resistance occurs when affectively-incurred emotions, such as anger, are translated into action. for clough (2008), these theorists portray the “subject as the subject of emotion” (p.1). in assuming that anger leads to action, the circumstances in which anger leads to non-action or where action is preceded by indifference are ignored. ahmed (2010) argues that “to be affected ‘in a good way’ involves an orientation toward something as being good” (p.24). to be affected towards resistance involves an orientation towards resistance as good. this is not to uphold a resistance = “good”/that being resisted = “bad” dichotomy, but to suggest that an orientation towards resistance as “good” may involve viewing resistance as favourable, possible, hopeful, affirming, necessary, risky but worthwhile. in he, management emphasis on competition and steadfast reliance on precarious work incur affective “byproducts” (whitney, 2018) that compel workers to supress unprofitable feelings (veldstra, 2020). by stressing the importance of conformity and the vulnerability of resistance, these byproducts forge systems of constraint that “construct prudent subjects whose moral quality is based on the fact that they rationally assess the costs and benefits of a certain act.” (lemke, 2001, p.201). although this goes some way to explaining compliance, foucault (1997) asserts the possibility of resistance exists within all power relations. yet this position frames resistance as a derivative of a deliberately undertaken cost-benefit analysis. competing with this is the spinozian perspective that the subject’s capacity to affect and be affected stems from matters that exceed the “illusions” of consciousness (deleuze, 1988). consequently, “the emergence of action is never a mere realization of a preceding set of possibilities but reflects a dynamic and open situation” (hynes, 2013, p.567). for human practice theorists, such prepersonal takes struggle to consider how affect is performed and revised through emotion and meaning making. by conceptualising affective intensities as prism baker (2021) prism 6 early view working on the levels of energies and intensities, the body is merely: assailed by events, by smells, the social relations organizing spaces, material objects and global economic forces. the person becomes a kind of semiintelligent, hormonal ape … non-consciously reacting, their preconscious doing most of the work; rarely, it seems, talking to each other or negotiating. (wetherell, 2008, p.236). human practice thinkers thus re-entangle the pre-personal with deliberation, portraying social actors and their affective capacities as neither fully self-governing nor entirely driven by social forces (mazzeralla, 2012). in human practice terms, resisters are neither “fully conscious” (orner, 1992) nor completely transgressive. instead, resistant actions are always under construction, constantly becoming. in terms of he, this understanding dictates that actors within universities are intentionally and unintentionally navigating the by-products emerging from an assemblage of material and discursive elements, such as images (marketing, branding), discourses (research output, teaching staff, alumni, assumed prestige), assets (resources, buildings, endowments, possessions, gifts), bodies, subjectivities and emotion (charteris et al, 2019). crucially, this assemblage not only affects bodies (human and non-human) but are affected by them, thereby reiterating how even socalled “decaf” (contu, 2008) resistance is transformative, with the undertaking of “everyday” actions coinciding with the he assemblage so to inform that which the sector is becoming. of course, it should not be assumed that the transition from everyday resistance to (favourable) change is linear or automatic. as the next section describes, the neoliberal nature of contemporary he not only withstands repeated critiques but does so while consolidating its stronghold (see bacevic, 2019b). at the same time, viewing resistance according to these varying perspectives on affect means resistance cannot be so easily observed. in a context which prioritises that which can be measured and compared, this is itself a transgressive act. 5. neoliberalism, higher education and resistance neoliberalism and academic staff the emergence of neoliberal ideology is often attributed to twentieth century political theorists friedman (2002 [1962]), hayek (1996 [1949]) and polanyi (2001 [1944]). responding to a perceived growth in socialism, these thinkers developed liberal values concerning individual freedom and limited government, aligning the former with participation in the free market as opposed to the innate ability for autonomous thought (turner, 2007). this particular ideal has been adopted by subsequent uk governments, who for the last 40 years have introduced competitive states of play into more and more aspects of human life both by emphasising the role of personal responsibility and opening up public sectors to private forces (o’regan & gray, 2018). in uk he, expansion of the sector and attempts to improve the provision of teaching and research have been enacted through metrics that require institutions and the actors within them to perpetually vie for reputation, student fees and funding (see dbis, 2010). with the supposedly contestable outcomes of these metrics determining income, university finances are presented as unreliable. consequently, the employment of permanent academic staff has become regarded as financially and reputationally risky (macfarlane, 2019). insecure contracts, including fixed term, zero hour and outsourced ones, are hence a normative condition of he (hesa, 2020), with such contracts disproportionately held by women and black and minority ethnic staff (megoran & mason, 2020). though precariousness is by no means unique to he (neilson & rossiter, 2008), the toxicity of academic precarity is exacerbated by the notion that this work is a “rite of passage” (lopes & dewan, 2015). although he researchers and practitioners have long expressed a discontent with competitively inclined policies, resistance remains simultaneously immanent and elusive. for leathwood & read (2013), heightened levels of vulnerability and scrutiny frame academic-level resistance as a threat to current and future job security, leaving academics with “no prism baker (2021) prism 7 early view choice” (p.1172) but to comply with the demands of outcome-focussed management. corroborating this assertion, findings from interviews with 44 uk-based academics on fixed term contracts suggest that jobrelated anxiety is not only effective (by way of producing results) but affective (through creating an obedient employee) (loveday, 2018). although it seems a gulf exists between what academics feel and what they do, there is also some evidence of minor resistance taking place behind a facade of commitment. anderson (2008), for instance, notes that academics in australia frequently opt to “ignore particular managerial requests” (p.262) or comply only with demands in “minimal, pragmatic, or strategic ways” (p.264). similarly, while uk participants in raaper’s (2016) study of assessment regulations refrained from overt “practices of freedom”, they nonetheless sought to act in discreetly transgressive ways. if affective responses are automatic and driven by forces beyond consciousness, then the affect of neoliberalism must also exceed notions of personal responsibility discourses and choice. indeed, the dispersion of competition and insecurity into more and more aspects of everyday life has led to neoliberalism being likened to common sense (torres, 2011), the implication being the willing and unwilling construction of the competitive subject. for academics, neoliberal participation is therefore inevitable. archer’s (2008) investigation into the perceptions of academics born in the 1980’s found that criticisms of neoliberalism could only go so far, with one participant stating: “i keep on pushing myself and challenging myself and sometimes that doesn’t feel very nice. but i can’t imagine doing it any other way” (p.282). while this inability to articulate neoliberalism’s hold over behaviour suggests that the embodiment of neoliberal values is not entirely conscious, it also raises the question as to whether resistance is an entirely conscious matter: can resistant engagement also creep, knowingly and unknowingly, into one’s actions? in accordance with the onto-epistemological position described at the outset of the report, neoliberalism, while pervasive, cannot be not the stable “foundational structure” (st. pierre, 2016) through which everything passes. neoliberal values and policies must be mediated, manipulated, as well as enacted by and through the entanglement of the material and discursive. as a result of this “ongoing reconstitution” (springer, 2012, p.142), the way subjectification is attempted and experienced is changeable, contingent and uncertain, meaning attitudes, ideas and actions can shift in ways that equally consolidate and problematise neoliberalism’s power and influence. while this discussion resonates with a human practice perspective, it does not deny the affective dimension of resistant behaviour. certainly, it is the acknowledgement of this dimension that can broaden conceptualisations of action as well as avenues for participation and research. with this in mind, the following discussion examines the complexities of participation and inaction in relation to the methods of strike action and action short of strike (asos). what ensues does not intend to undermine the use of these methods, or the affirmative power that they hold. instead, intention is to explore possibilities for the utilisation of resistance’s affective elements, possibilities which – in recognising the intricate power relations that pervade all actions – could, hopefully, possibly, maybe work in a collaborative fashion to push the becomings of he into a more equitable direction. dimensions of action since 2018, the university college union (ucu) have led three sets of strike action, with the corresponding ballots responding to detrimental changes to the universities superannuation scheme (uss) and untenable working conditions (ucu, 2020a). to orient a sense of strike action as good, the motivations informing such action were associated with a broad sense of injustice. during the october 2019 ballot, jo grady, ucu general secretary, stated: if employers close uss they will be able to play staff off against each other ... what used to be a common standard for the whole sector will become the preserve of a privileged few, while most staff will see their benefits reduced. and if the gender and race pay gaps are anything to go by, women and bme staff will suffer disproportionately. (ucu, 2019) prism baker (2021) prism 8 early view as noted, the circuit from affect to emotion to action is not linear; feeling as though something is important is not in itself enough to encourage participation. from a human practice orientation, meaning making revises the affective elements of emotional states. some individuals may certainly be motivated to act by both positive emotions towards action and negative feelings towards the way things are, as well as their connection to networks of participation and “activist advocates” (hensby, 2017). at the same time, others may be susceptible to counter-grievances. shared by unsupportive members of management or colleagues, these grievances may then be affective in dissuading rather than facilitating participation. what is more, the 2019 and 2020 strikes comprised of 22 days of action within the space of three months, with strikers not paid for these days. though pay deductions would already have been felt more harshly by those in low-income households, some universities chose to take strike deductions from a single pay cheque (e.g. university of nottingham, 2020) rather than across a number of months (e.g. university of exeter, 2020). as a result, participation in the strikes required staff to sacrifice that which already deemed insufficient enough to warrant resistance. it is a similar case with asos, which required participants to work “exactly to the minimum required by your own contract. your contract stipulates working hours; it allows you a lunch break and allows most of us a weekend … do exactly that” (ucu, 2020b). responses to a workload survey distributed by the ucu in 2016 reveal that academic staff work an average of 50.9 hours a week. illustrating just how reliant universities have become on goodwill, overtime and unpaid labour, some institutions argued that contracted tasks would not be completed under asos conditions and so threatened to deduct the pay of those participating (e.g. warwick ucu, 2020). for those dependent on contract renewal, an inability to complete the same number of duties as usual arguably becomes a competitive disadvantage should management hold unsympathetic orientations on asos or should colleagues be continuing as normal. thus, and irrespective of laws protecting strikers from negative consequences following industrial action, concerns regarding financial and employment security blur the lines between resistance and compliance. an additional example of this blurring occurring during the 2018 strikes, when union members on tier 2 visas were required to return to work over concerns relating to unauthorised absences and deportation (denmead, 2019). on the surface, equating industrial action with resistance maintains a superficial distinction between what resistance is and is not. beneath the binary of striker/non-striker, industrial action initiates resistance around as well as within official actions. encouraged by striking staff, those unable or unwilling to participate in strikes and asos may have written a letter to the vice-chancellor, moved classes to non-picketed sites, set up temporary offices (e.g. denmead, 2019) or used a management position to leverage for better working conditions. to demonstrate how resistance occurs in more than one direction, some of those absent from the picket lines may also be resisting resistance deemed to disproportionately affect students, precarious staff and those with low income. the above actions are, however, temporally limited. in contrast, the notion of becoming suggests that transformation of the status quo exists in daily behaviours also – ones that slowly change what a job role means, those that challenge previously and currently held expectations. in some ways, this idea supports the development of actions that are not only collective but continuous and subtly so. of course, one resounding issue with exploiting everyday resistance is that, upon being a purposeful activity, such resistance becomes less “everyday”, with the risks associated with these behaviours arguably becoming more severe than when undertaken individually. though, in theory, such actions may function in ways that are simultaneously affective and effective, unions are accountable to disempowering restrictions (discussed by umney, 2018). by demanding that employers are given detailed notice of action at least 7 days before the commencement of such action, these laws prevent the gradual and discreet overthrow of the status quo. organised action is thus caught in a bind; through being legally required to remain overt, rare and “ceremonial” prism baker (2021) prism 9 early view (mccabe, 2019), such action works unintentionally and unwillingly in favour of exploitative employers. though there is perhaps an argument that underground networks – networks which are not legally obliged to inform employers of actions being taken against them – may be preferable to that which is unionised. by not being protected, this form of resistance nevertheless exacerbates the vulnerabilities already described. more will once again be asked of those in insecure and unaccommodating positions. the above discussion still reduces resistance to a series of intentionally undertaken deliberations. having described oswald drucot’s metaphor of the bull in a field, massumi (2015) likens affect to the unconscious action of running away: “before you have had time to think, you have already sized up the mood of the bull” (p.194). to run away from the bull hence requires an acquired understanding of the danger it can pose; the sense to move and to move quickly. upon replacing the image of the bull with the image of the neoliberal university, it might be wondered whether, in order for the individual’s affective response to be that of avoidance, competition and precarity must also be viewed as unjust and dangerous. what repetitive critiques tell us, however, is that neoliberal he is already perceived as such. as such, the minimal, pragmatic and strategic resistant behaviours observed by anderson (2008) are likely prevalent in ways that uk-based research has not fully considered. at the same time, it can be postulated whether massumi’s person runs from the bull because they believe escape is possible. they are not merely being “assailed” (wetherell et al, 2008) by the sense of danger but that have previously made meaning of the danger being posed. even though this paper has maintained that neoliberalism is not a totalising entity, this orientation cannot be taken for granted. research – like that of archer’s (2008) – suggests that the sense of danger is, for some, ineluctable. the presumed unavoidability of neoliberal he may, then, dissuade affectively resistant becomings by framing such practice as destined to fail. conversely, should an academic believe that resistance can be significant, then more of their automatic responses may be transgressive in nature. of course, this is not to assume that an inclination towards resistance will incur the same outcome for all who hold it. affective history, alongside disparities of employment, social status and resistant capital (crew, 2020; yosso, 2005) will continue to inform inequalities of perception and embodiment. moreover, affective capacities and inclinations fluctuate. as resistance becomes, so too does counter-resistance. consequently, while transgression can become in some ways, compliance may become in others. upon immediate reflection, the author might think the ties between neoliberalism and academic are too powerful to overcome. philosophically, the notion of becoming reminds us that change is possible and immanent; the way things are are not the way things have to be. while a way through is difficult to comprehend, researchers have yet to pay extensive empirical attention to everyday resistance in the context of uk he; the varying ways in which academics perceive neoliberal policy and resistance against it; and the presence – or absence – of actions that are undertaken instinctively. by focussing not on what resistance is but on the potential avenues for resistant becomings, further investigation could yield insights into affect that can then be exploited so to foster collaborative, multi-level forms of action. still, there are further questions that theoretical work should look to consider. how, for instance, could such research be conveyed and published without letting institutions, management and policy-makers into the secret? how could such research be conducted and shared without jeopardising the resistance already happening beneath the surface of inaction? and in what ways, if any, does observing affect remove its affective power? 6. concluding remarks by centring that which has been suppressed in discourse, including that which exceeds consciousness, the take home message from this paper is that the affective dimensions of action are currently underutilised in academic-level resistance. this argument somewhat belies itself, assuming that these affective dimensions can be consciously observed. such a theoretical contradiction is not minor or insignificant. still, and according to the prism baker (2021) prism 10 early view feminist poststructural position underpinning this paper, pathways for future research have not been proposed for the sake of knowing resistance but for the sake of expanding current conceptualisations and practices. indeed, retheorising resistance in view of non-representational and human practice theories accepts that resisters and non-resisters do not participate or refuse in a vacuum but are responding to interminably developing circumstances. this, then, problematises the dualisms of overt/covert and real/decaf by highlighting the “multiple social positions, multiple voices, conscious and unconscious pleasures, tensions, desires, and contradictions” (orner, 1992, p.79) of resistance. further action against the forces driving uk he is both a pressing and immanent question. following the last set of ucu strikes in march 2020, universities responded to financial uncertainty during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic by making thousands of precarious staff redundant (staton, 2020). this unjust redundancy project has continued into 2021, with a number of universities, including leicester and liverpool, announcing redundancies – or the threat of (fazakerley, 2021; university of leicester ucu, 2021). what is evidence is that he is an increasingly volatile and precarious sector for all – the urgency for new becomings has never been greater. prism baker (2021) prism 11 early view 7. disclosure statement the author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 8. open access policy this journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. this journal article is published under the following creative commons licence: this licence allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to this article (and other works in this journal), and/or to use them for any other lawful purpose in accordance with the licence. prism is also indexed in the world largest openaccess database: doaj (the directory of open access journals). doaj is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 9. references ahmed, s. 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